Miracle Woman
by The Jack of Spades
Summary: The Planet has much in store for Tifa Lockheart, and it all starts with her affair with a reclusive freelance writer, in a world where civilization is on its knees. Tifa⁄Seph, in progress
1. 1

I once heard somewhere, "There are no endings, because nothing ends." Whoever said that was a very smart man/woman/...thing. I forget where I picked it up; it's just one of those little sayings I'd like to believe. What really kills that though is having to face a civilization that's slowly but surely dying. 

But at least we're all alive, right? We've got our health and a roof over our heads, so I guess it isn't the end just yet. Now let's see who got the nicest shot of that purty red sky. 

Funny thing, but people actually did take pictures, and some even claim they'd caught Meteor on film. Of course I haven't seen any proof, but the newspapers love to exaggerate whatever rumors they can get their hands on. They just need something to report, other than the three R's: riots, robberies, and religious fanatics. 

Sometimes I think the Planet cursed us for trying to outlast it. I think the stars envy us now, in a way. They live and then they die; they don't struggle against their fate. But man does. Sometimes it seems like he was born to fight. Maybe we never should have survived Holy, but we did. We fought against the end. 

I've been looking up at the stars at night a lot lately, just wondering. I think about wishing on them for the old way of life back, for peace, or for an easy life, but why bother? They won't hear me anymore. Maybe they do hate me; after all they were there in the sky that night when _he_ left me, even if it was with good reason. They saw what happened, those stars, and I think they laughed at all my wishing. 

Or maybe I'm just a very unlucky lady who keeps losing shining knights. I hate to be so negative, but when you're in my position it's hard to think optimistically. 

So here I am again. I accepted another promise and I let him sail away. I still have faith in his return, but it dies a little every day. The thought crossed my mind once to go out on another clear night and ask the stars to forgive me, forgive me for being human and instinctively clinging to life like every other living thing out there, even if it isn't always in the best of circumstances. 

And I want them to forgive him too, just like I learned to. It was all destined, wasn't it? And I'm just a little piece of the whole thing. 

Oh, but listen to me; I'm going on. I guess if I'm going to tell my story I should start from the end. 

Or what I call an end. You may call it a beginning. 

"Miracle Woman"

by Kitt

Disclaimer: I don't own a blessed thing from FF7; Square does.

1

The world didn't end with a big bang...although it came very close. 

Lifestream saved us. I'd get all the details about that much, much later on, but that's pretty much the truth in a nutshell. I think Aeris had a hand in that somehow. You can say I'm just being silly, and maybe I am, but lately there aren't many things I'm willing to put faith into, so that's really saying something. I like to believe that she asked the Planet to send Lifestream to save us. Maybe she did; who can say? 

She'd live on in my nightmares for weeks, Aeris, along with Sephiroth, ShinRa, Holy, and Meteor. Death, destruction, the end, all in my dreams. I don't dream much about those things now, but strangely enough, Aeris had been in one sort of recent dream of mine... Ack, I'm getting ahead of myself. Well, you wait; I'll get to that soon. 

But even though I don't dream about the end of the world anymore, I still remember it well. You don't forget that kind of thing, ever. I remember being on a very beat-up _Highwind_; I remember wanting to cry, but feeling too empty to scrape up a tear. I could only keep telling myself that it would be all right somehow. Maybe I just went nuts temporarily or something... Hey, that's Cloud cynicism there! He always thought I'd end up cynical. He said time would do that to me, and I think I just proved him right. Either way, I probably should have used that optimism to get everyone's spirits up, but I couldn't speak; I was numbed. There was only that shallow fear and a bit of crazy, fragile hope. 

I remember Cait Sith coming over to me at one point, leaving his stuffed moogle for my shoulder. Reeve said nothing so he made no sound, but like the cat that he looked like he snuggled against my face, near my ear. I reached up to him. I remember him being strange to touch, sort of fuzzy on the surface, but weird and hard beneath. I was glad to have him close. It was a sign that the person behind him really cared. When we land, I told myself, I would get a cat. A black one with white mittens, kind of in his honor, and even if I like dogs better (I think it's the whole loyalty thing). 

In case you're wondering, my cat doesn't have white mittens. Well, on his forepaws he does at least, but not on the back ones. And his name is Lars. But Lars doesn't come into my story for a while yet, so sit tight. 

The sky as I remember was very dark---I think it was night then where we were. When the sun would rise the next day, I would see the scars for the first time. That red sky would take months to heal. It would make everyone miserable, having no sunshine for so long. But like I said, mankind's a fighter. He'll always prevail, even in the worst of times. He wants to live; that's his nature. My nature. 

It'd be about a week before we'd split up after the world nearly ended. We split up the materia and dropped everyone off, back where they wanted to be. Vincent just vanished though, and Cait Sith got returned to Reeve, but everyone still had someone, someplace, something. 

Sometimes things turn out ironically. It all started with Cloud, Barret, and I...and Marlene too, and that's how it is now. We picked up Marlene in Kalm and made sure Elmyra was all right before we left. Then for the longest time, we traveled everywhere. 

We had our reasons. I think Barret and I were looking for some proof that humanity wasn't going straight down the toilet, but we were hard pressed to find that. Civilization did hit rock bottom. You know that ShinRa did everything for the people; most of the cities on the Planet depended on them for electricity. Now that Midgar was nothing more than a ruin and ShinRa had fallen with it, there was no power in most cities. And no government. Nothing could stop people from doing whatever they liked. Things are still like that today in some places. It's anarchy; you're required to have a gun or some kind of weapon if you want to enter the larger, more dangerous towns. And that's not a written law, it's common sense. Blow their heads off before they blow off yours and make away with everything you have. 

We were all wrong to depend on ShinRa and their Mako. But one question I never got answered is why human beings always need a major disaster to show them where they're going wrong. 

Cloud... His reasons for wanting to travel a lot were different. He never spoke of them, not to anyone, but I've learned to read him after knowing him for so long. He was looking for Aeris. Barret knew it too. 

"But he ain't gonna find her," he said. "She's gone and he's gotta move on. Ain't gonna do him no good to keep holdin' on ta memories. Let her rest." 

I can understand that so well; I'm always clinging to memories myself. It's what caused me so much misery. Barret was right, best to let go and move on. 

That clinging would turn out to be a greater problem for me than I could imagine, but I'll get to that eventually. 

I don't think Cloud ever found the answers he wanted. I don't think he even wanted to be with Barret or Marlene or me, but we couldn't stay in one spot either. The little things in life overwhelmed us. I mean, we defeated a god, for heaven's sake. We'd been to the center of the Planet. Now we had to get regular jobs, keep a nice house, pay rent and stuff... It was almost like a blow to the head. Wow, look at us. We're normal people again. 

Too, I depended on Cloud a lot. He and I have the strangest relationship on the Planet. After the Lifestream incident, we grew really close. I had attached myself to him for the longest time; I felt I had to follow him wherever he went. Maybe that's why I still feel like I need him near me, and maybe he feels a little attached too. That could explain his staying with me even if we're not Cloud _and_ Tifa. (We're Cloud and _his friend_ Tifa, or the other way around.) 

I think everything we've been through makes him want to stick around too. At times though, early on, he seemed really torn between staying and leaving, and I think his struggle went beyond me or had nothing to do with me at all. He even gave in at one point and did leave...but he came back, in time. I'm grateful he did too. He helped me a lot, regardless of him not being a boyfriend. 

It's funny, really. After all that we've been through, we're nothing more than friends. All that I wanted, all that I waited for and longed for never happened. Of course I can say now that it was fated, or so I believe, but back then I had nothing to comfort me. I just felt unlucky. 

But someone else came along and I thought for a time then that luck was back on my side. 

This story is a long one. I learned so much through him, and he learned a lot through me. He was my teacher and my student, though more of the latter I think. It was all just one more lesson that life, the Planet, had to teach. And in that sense we were both students. 

I've spent hours trying to rationalize it. I've spent hours crying over it, agonizing over it, and it all turned out to have such simple answers. Now that he's gone, I think I've taught him all that I could. But I still want him back. Humanity can die; I don't care. Yes, I know that sounds selfish, but I still don't care. I can't find the strength to care. I want him back, even if I'm wishing against the stars, against the Planet. I'm past the crying, but I'm still hurting. 

Our parting was consensual; we agreed to it. And he said he'd be back, but it's been three weeks now... 

I remember everything about him so well. I could tell you every dirty little detail, from the way he kissed to...well, you name it. You name it and I miss it. 

If Cloud and I have a strange relationship, then the last one I had was just plain twisted. Not that I love it any less for that, but it's the best word I can think of. Twisted, twisted and very, very deep. So much came out of us getting together. We..."clicked," I guess you can say. 

Just talking about it makes me ache. I feel sick. Maybe I should never have started this. 

But you always told me to come to you whenever I had a problem, so it's all right. I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything. 

After being bitten by the travel bug, we ended up in a little town called Quintz, a place that still had contact with sanity. We'd been on the road for months before that. Our money came from odd jobs and selling materia. Some people really paid us well for that stuff, almost to the point where it looked like we were ripping them off. 

Quintz was far north of Gongaga, one of those tiny towns that no one really cared about save the people who lived there. We heard about it when we came to the Gold Saucer long ago, when we were on Sephiroth's tail. We passed up a visit because it was so small and unimportant. No wonder too---it had no connections to Midgar at all. To the people of Quintz, Sephiroth and ShinRa were just famous names without faces. 

To the northwest was a larger city, Reine, something that the people of Quintz called a "big city." It was in pretty bad shape, though. It had depended on ShinRa for power once, so there was chaos up there now. Fortunately none of us needed to go there right away, and I wouldn't end up paying it a visit for a while yet. 

Cloud eventually came back down to earth, though it was rough and there was still that flightiness, that struggle in him. We lived together in a small townhouse in Uptown Quintz, the half of the city that was mostly residential. The other half---Downtown---was the only place I'd ever seen with five pizza parlors practically door-to-door, among other things. There were exceptions of course; I would meet two people who lived in Downtown. Barret and Marlene lived in Uptown with us, but because there weren't any more townhouses up for rent, they had to move into an apartment a couple of blocks away. We visited each other often though, so the distance didn't really matter. 

It nearly left all of us broke, buying everything we needed to settle in, but we decided that Quintz would be our final stop. No more traveling. We'd spend the rest of our lives here, where it was pretty much peaceful and free of unwanted memories. 

The month was January, a little over a year since Meteor then. There were a bunch of fanatics who wanted to restart the calendar so that it would be year one then---one year since the would-be disaster---but thankfully most people didn't take them seriously. Civilization's outlook hadn't improved much generally speaking, but since Quintz was so self-reliant our lives got sort of comfy, at least as much as circumstances would allow. TV didn't provide much in the way of anything, news or otherwise---ShinRa dominated most of the media, remember?---so you'd be better off getting information from newspapers and the occasional magazine. Yes, we still had those circulating; that, actually, was how I met Destiny. 

Destiny would call himself Sef. 


	2. 2

2

Downtown Quintz had a little eatery, something people simply called "The Cafe." It had no real name, just the letters C-A-F-E on the front outside. Naturally that was where I worked. 

It was part coffeehouse, part diner, part tavern, so all my old drink-mixing skills came into play again. ID was required if you wanted something alcoholic, but it was easy to fake one considering there was no electronic means of checking them. ShinRa had that kind of setup in the cities that depended on it long ago, but like I said, Quintz was self-reliant. Bartenders had to rely on good common sense. In other words, unless you looked _really_ old, we carded you. And oh, you should've heard the excuses we got. Here was a good one: because Meteor nearly crash landed into a city on a totally different continent separated from us by miles and miles of ocean, some guy managed to lose his driver's license. But then again, I did get dumber excuses back when I ran Seventh Heaven. 

The man who ran The Cafe was a typical father figure guy. He had a home in Reine, a happy wife, and two daughters whom he thought the world of. He always looked out for his female employees when he was around, almost like they were his daughters too. That's what I loved best about him, really. 

I was hired practically on the spot. I would meet my second best friend in the whole world there, after Cloud and Barret: Georgette Stutt, but the whole world called her Gigi. Because the whole world didn't want its shins kicked. 

I showed up at The Cafe at seven in the evening and the owner---his name was Mr. Weiss---led me to the break room down a hall in back so I could meet my new coworkers. Three of them were there, all seated, two girls and a guy. Mr. Weiss had me introduce myself, and then he introduced everyone else to me. 

The guy's name was Antoine and he didn't say much. I could describe him best as tall, dark, and quiet. Very quiet. The girl on the right was busy cracking her gum loudly and twirling her hair around her finger. Bleach-blonde hair, with black roots. She looked really young. She didn't seem like a bad girl though. The girl in the middle... I should've known she'd be trouble at first. She was a redhead, after all---well, blondish red, but you get the idea. Now I thought I was thin, but this girl was downright skinny. And she had freckles. Lots. All over. You could have played connect-the-dots on her arms and face. 

Antoine's greeting was a shy nod; the bleach-blonde girl---her name was Jessi, something that had me mentally going all the way back to the day when the plate fell in Midgar---smiled brightly and waved a little. The redheaded girl's eyes fell right to my chest and got so wide, I thought they'd fall out of her head. 

"Oh my GOD," she gaped at me. "You hired this..." There she gestured over and over again with her right hand, trying to come up with a nice way of putting things. "...Full-figured girl, and now every guy who comes in here's gonna notice _her_ instead of me. God, I should've seen this coming..." 

"Gigi," Mr. Weiss started. 

"What about Roger, Gigi?" said Jessi, still cracking away at her gum. 

Gigi looked confused for a moment, then said simply, "Oh, well, he doesn't mind if other guys look at me." Then she turned back to me and asked, "What's your bra size? I betcha she's three times my size..." 

I could have died. Jessi started laughing, but from the way her face was turning red, she seemed almost as embarrassed as I was. Antoine shifted in his seat and looked away from me, and Mr. Weiss told Gigi bluntly to cut it out. 

"What? I'm just asking a question!" 

"You know I don't hire based on appearances," Mr. Weiss said. "Tifa can tend bar---said she used to run one all by herself back in Midgar." 

"She might be lying," Gigi was quick to point out. 

Mr. Weiss sneered. "Why would she lie? Look, I gotta get back out front. Jessi, break's over in a few more minutes, okay? And Gigi---Tifa's hired, so you're just going to have to get used to her." He left the break room and a very mortified me who wanted to crawl into a corner and hide. 

"But I didn't say I didn't like her! Ugh..." Gigi looked disgusted, then looked back up at me. She had the palest blue eyes I ever saw. "Don't listen to him; he's always bitching about everything I say. You look like a nice girl." She shocked me then by offering me her hand. 

I took it while running through a mental list of things to say to her, since I felt I was being too quiet. I felt almost like an outcast. Everyone here already knew each other. I wasn't used to being the outsider who wanted in. "Gigi... That's a pretty name." Lame, and not really sincere either, but I couldn't think of much else. 

Gigi smirked. "Better than my real name." 

"_Georgette_," Jessi said illustratively. Her index finger seemed to be permanently wrapped in her hair. I guessed it was a nervous habit, or some kind of subconscious thing. 

Gigi let go of my hand and turned to kick Jessi's shins. 

"Ow...!" Jessi cried, then started laughing again. Okay, the hair twirling was subconscious. The laughter was a nervous habit. 

Gigi smiled at her evilly, and then she looked at me again. "See? That's what happens when people call me by that hideous name. I kick them. Ask Antoine; he knows a lot about that. Hey, stupid!" She pounded her little fist on his thigh. He'd been so quiet I almost forgot he was there, until then. 

"Ow, stop!" he whined, and that was when I realized that around Gigi everyone was either eternally embarrassed or eternally afraid. I figured I'd be taking turns being in both shoes. 

"Show her your bruises!" Gigi ordered him. "I kick Antoine all the time, since he's always doing STUPID things," she explained to me. She seemed to be proud of the fact that she could kick people and get away with it. 

"You do stupid things too," Antoine came back defensively. "What was that dumb thing you said that one time? 'My contempt for you could fill thirty shopping carts'...?" 

"How's that stupid?" 

Antoine shrugged nervously and got quiet again. "I don't know..." 

"Ass face." 

"Leave me alone, damn it..." 

"Why should I?" 

While Gigi browbeat Antoine, Jessi leaned over in her chair toward me and whispered, "She's _always_ like that." 

Great, I had a lot to look forward to. "How do you work with that?" I asked, hoping I didn't get overheard. Finally, normal conversation. 

"Oh, I don't work with Gigi. I'm on a different shift---" 

Gigi abandoned her argument with Antoine. "Yeah, me and Jessi don't work together. And that's so sad," she added, getting melodramatic, leaning over to hug the girl, "'cuz she's like my little sister...!" 

Jessi didn't look like she wanted to be hugged then; she was smiling nervously. 

"'Little sister'?" I repeated. I thought she looked young. "How old are you, Jessi?" 

"She's only SIXTEEN!" Gigi poked her head up, it having been buried in Jessi's shoulder. She announced that like it was a tragedy. 

"I can't even tend bar!" Jessi whined. "I can't even touch anything alcoholic..." 

So why was she working here, I thought, but I didn't say anything. 

Mr. Weiss came down the hall and into the break room. "Jessi, break's over," he announced, and I watched the girl get up and leave the room. She was a really tiny thing; she was lucky if she made the five-foot mark. She was all the way out the door before she peeked back in really fast. 

"Nice to meet you," she said, and then she was gone. 

That was when I got my schedule from Mr. Weiss and learned how things went around The Cafe. It turned out that I would be working with Gigi and Antoine, for better or for worse. The Cafe was really small, so it needed only three people per shift more or less, aside from the people who worked in back. That was a totally different setup, and it didn't involve me. The shifts rotated on some irregular basis. At the most I'd work five days a week; at the least, I'd work three. There was a uniform too, which was something I wasn't used to, but this one was kind of cute: a white shirt with really tiny sleeves and a red dress scarf that went around the neck and got tied in front, making the knot about mid-chest. There was a pleated white skirt that went with it, short but not as short as my old leather one. Of course in winter you could substitute with white pants if you wanted, which I did since I got cold easily. 

My job didn't require anything that working at Seventh Heaven didn't. I cleaned tables, made drinks and sandwiches and coffee and things, washed dishes, and either locked up or opened up shop, depending on my shift. Things were pretty easy, but Gigi occasionally got trying. Really early on, I came home with a bunch of complaints and a bruise or two. 

"I can't DEAL with her!" I told Cloud once. "She's impossible!" 

"Well why do you take it so much?" he asked me. "Why don't you start giving it back?" 

Because I'm not as tough as everyone thinks I am, I wanted to say, but I didn't. And that was the truth. I was cursed with shyness. For the longest time I took a back seat at work. Gigi ran the whole show. She seemed to really want to be my friend though, so that was a blessing. She was a scary person, really. 

One time I had an afternoon shift. It started at one o'clock and was on a weekday, so everyone in town was at work and things were slow. Gigi and I were washing dishes in the little sink behind the counter, and Antoine was at the counter with a single customer. 

"I love washing dishes," Gigi said with relish, scrubbing away at a glass. She abandoned it momentarily and stuck her hands all the way in the water. "Mmm, warm soapy water..." She shot me a silly look and I laughed at her. 

Then her silly look turned coy and she splashed me a little. With Cloud's words in mind, I splashed her back. A little. 

I started laughing. But then Gigi said, "Oh, you wanna splash fight now?" And she started splashing me over and over again. Now I knew she was joking---she was smiling the whole time---but she always got so _rough_. She had me squealing and raising my hands, trying to defend myself, and it only stopped when she remembered something I told her a while ago. 

"Oh, right, you can kick my skinny little ass," she said. She stopped splashing. "_Martial artist_ that you are." 

By then Antoine was finished with the customer and came over to us. "What're you _doing_? Why're you soaking wet?" he asked me. Poor Antoine, he tried so hard to be bossy early on, on occasion, and in the process he always managed to irk either me or Gigi or both of us. It was when he got that way that I understood where Gigi came from. Thing was, I tolerated Antoine's annoying moments, where Gigi usually snapped his head off. 

Before I could say anything, Gigi came to my defense---sort of. She spared Antoine a little look over her shoulder and said quaintly, "Shuddup, balls eater." 

I doubled over laughing. Above me, I heard Antoine sigh and watched him walk away, shaking his head. 

Later on I learned to assert myself around Gigi, and it worked. In fact, I got the impression that she really wanted someone around who wasn't afraid of her. But it took a while for things to get into that nice, comfortable routine. 

That was my life then. I worked at a cafe and Cloud and Barret did odd jobs around the city. Barret amazed me with his capability of being able to last in a job for a long time, while Cloud just jumped from job to job. More proof of his having not settled down completely, I thought. It caused me some anxiety, but most of the time I kept it in the back of my head. 

January passed, and February and March came and went, and now it was early April. Life still carried on, even if in other parts of the world things were far worse than where I was. 

One thing I learned was that time did funny things to people. It made them soft, you could say. I started forgetting a lot of things, like this: Aeris still lived on in my memory, but sometimes I had trouble remembering what she looked like. ShinRa, Rufus and especially his father, and Hojo and Scarlet and even Sephiroth... Time wiped them away. I was grateful for it, actually. Those memories weren't pleasant ones. I let them fade willingly. 

I would live to regret that, of course. 

Gigi and I grew close outside of work and pretty soon we were hanging out a lot. She lived all twenty-four years of her life in Quintz, so she showed me around. We were at a ratty little magazine stand one day, a few blocks down from The Cafe. I wasn't really much of a reader, so I wasn't there for anything, but Gigi was there to buy porn. 

I learned two things about her very quickly: she loved gossip and was obsessed with sex. It came up a lot in our conversations. I didn't care to discuss that myself, but she loved to hear about my pathetic little love life, so I indulged her, as much as I wanted. 

There was a little line at the stand that day. Newspapers and things were big sources of entertainment considering there wasn't really much else. There must've been three or four people ahead of us by the time we got in line, and to top it all off, it was raining pretty badly. Gigi and I shared an umbrella---her umbrella; it was red, her favorite color. I was holding it, and higher than I normally would too, since Gigi was two inches taller than me, give or take. I was patient about the wait, but she was anxious, trying to look around the people ahead of us to see what was going on up front. 

"God, I need an electric cattle prod," she whispered. With Gigi, a whisper was a little bit louder than what I would call a whisper. She had no embarrassment whatsoever. "Will this line move faster or something? I ain't gettin' any younger back here!" 

"You're not old," I pointed out, and she nudged me in the ribs with that pointy elbow of hers. 

That was when someone else came in line behind us. I didn't really notice him right away, but I did get a glimpse---from the chest down of course, since I had the umbrella over my head. He seemed very tall, and he was wearing something long and black and buttoned. 

For some reason, I got the impression that he was very sad, but I got something else too: goosebumps. Something about him didn't settle well with me. I got the repeated urge to abandon Gigi and wait for her somewhere else, but it seemed so stupid. He was just an ordinary guy. Just because he was tall and dark didn't mean he was a psycho-rapist-pervert or something. 

Gigi, of course, reacted differently. She looked over her shoulder once, twice. That was when she lifted the umbrella up slightly and I felt rain on my back. I got annoyed. "What're you doing?" 

She lowered the umbrella and faced me. "Look behind you." She was smiling, like she was about to let me in on a big secret. 

So I looked. I tried not to raise the umbrella much, since I didn't want it to be obvious. The whole time Gigi was speaking right in my ear. 

"Did you see him? Did you see him yet?" 

"I can't, the umbrella's in the way..." 

"Then get _rid_ of the fucking umbrella! Just _look_!" She took the umbrella out of my hand and closed it up on me. 

"Are you crazy? Open that up again; we're gonna get soaked!" I reached for the umbrella, but it was too late. She'd already turned around again. 

"Hi," she said, and I could've smacked her over the head. I didn't know what she'd been whispering about earlier, so I decided to turn around again and see who was going to get embarrassed along with me this time. 

He had no umbrella, but he was wearing a dark hat with a brim that cast a shadow over his face, so I couldn't see it very well. I could see enough to tell that he was actually kind of nice looking though, but in a strange way. I usually notice eyes first with people, but he seemed to make a real effort to keep his lowered. It didn't seem right, for some reason. Throw in the long black coat he was wearing and you shouldn't be surprised that the first thing I thought of was a news reporter. You know, the kind that used to be on TV, back when TV was useful? 

He answered Gigi. "Hi." And he smiled, halfway at least. He seemed almost as shy as I was. His voice caught me though, because it was familiar. Yes, I heard him somewhere before...or did I? It was deep, but there was a softness to it, something that made it sound kind of exotic. It was chilling, actually. Yes, I heard it before. Wait, no I didn't. Oh, that didn't make sense. I grabbed the umbrella from Gigi and opened it up again. 

There was quiet for a time, but it didn't last long. Gigi never allowed silence to reign for more than a few seconds. "You know, I know everybody in this town. I lived here all my life. But I don't know you." 

Oh, I should've known what she was trying to do! I shot her a glance. She was trying to flirt with this guy. Normally whenever she did that, I'd be nice and remind her that she had a boyfriend. But she probably wouldn't listen---she never did---and I wasn't the guardian of her relationship anyway. Besides, I wasn't that crazy about Roger. I met him briefly a while back and he looked a little shifty. So I just stood there and tried not to be too embarrassed. From the look of the poor guy behind us, he seemed to feel the same way I did. Figured. 

"I don't live here," he answered her. Again the familiar voice. Again the chill. Something wasn't right about this. 

"Where _do_ you live?" Gigi persisted. 

"Reine. The line's moving up." He pointed ahead of us. 

"Oh." Gigi whirled around, ducked under the umbrella, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me up a few paces. Then she leaned in closer. "Jesus Christ he's hot." She said that through gritted teeth, and she was digging her fingernails into my arm. I jerked it free. 

"You have a boyfriend," I whispered back. I couldn't help it. Better late than never to remind her. 

"Who _cares_? God... Didn't you see him? Damn..." She turned around to look at him again. 

If I hadn't been so spooked I probably would've agreed with her, partly maybe. But I had every bone in my body begging me to just run away. On top of that, I knew I couldn't leave Gigi there without looking dumb, so I was trapped. And I was cold and wet, the two worst things to be at the same time. 

Gigi turned around all the way again. She stood under the umbrella this time. I really wanted to take out a marker and scribble on her forehead "desperate." Then underneath, "with no reason to be so." She didn't say anything yet, so I looked at her curiously. She was just staring. It must kill her to be even the least bit discreet. 

I was too embarrassed to turn around, but I heard the guy ask her, "What?" 

And she said, "Oh, nothing. I just like staring at people sometimes. Just to freak them out." Then she laughed, which was followed by more quiet. 

The line moved up a few more times and Gigi managed not to say anything more the whole time. I was starting to get proud of her. Maybe she remembered Roger by then, but of course I thought too soon. 

By the time we were at the front of the line, Gigi announced very loudly, "You know what? I don't wanna buy anything here after all. C'mon, Tifa." She grabbed my free wrist and pulled me out of the line, off to the side where the curb was. But we didn't go any further than that. We watched while the guy behind us bought a magazine or something. He seemed to know exactly what he wanted, because he hadn't been standing at the counter for more than a few seconds. When he was done, he tucked whatever he'd gotten in the crook of his right arm and began to head in our direction. 

His eyes were green. I caught them the moment he tried to walk by us because he stopped to stare at me. A glowing green, and very pretty actually, but creepy too. And I saw recognition in them. It hit me like a slap in the face. He knew me, .and just a few moments ago I could've sworn I knew his voice. I froze. Neither of us said anything for an eternity. 

Leave it to Gigi to shatter peace and quiet. They were her enemies by nature. "You live in Reine?" she asked him, and he had to forcibly tear his eyes off me. He gave Gigi a nod. She looked like she was considering that piece of information before she spoke again. She was eying him up and down shamelessly. "How'd you get here then?" 

"I walked," he said simply. 

Gigi was incredulous. "What? Reine's a half an hour away by car! You couldn't have _walked_!" 

I saw her point there. I didn't know exactly how far away Reine was until she said so, but I knew it was a good distance. It was something else to add to this guy's creep-out factor, too. He _walked_ that whole distance? I tried putting everything together in my head, but I couldn't make sense of it. None of it made sense. I didn't know anyone from Reine; I'd never _been_ there. 

All the guy said was "I walked" again. 

And that was when Gigi got nasty. She usually did whenever she couldn't understand something. "You're full of it. You're so full of it your eyes are turning brown!" 

I almost burst out laughing, but I recovered pretty fast. The guy sort of glowered at her, but there was this weird touch to it, almost like he wanted to say "how little you know," or something like that. 

I finally decided to say something about my wanting to leave. "We should get going, Gigi. We're gonna get soaked." I should've known she wouldn't have gone anywhere, but I'd been keeping quiet about that for too long. 

I also should've known that she was definitely going to play what she heard me say to her advantage. "Yeah, speaking of soaked, look at mister 'I walked here from Reine' with no umbrella! Have you been here before? There's a little cafe up the street. I work there. You should stop in for a while and dry up or something. I could wring out your jacket right now and get enough water to end a famine." 

"You mean a drought," the man corrected her, and I almost had another laugh at Gigi's expense. 

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just come on. It's not far ahead. You're going that way anyway aren't you, since Reine's up north...?" 

"I'd rather be on my way, actually. I have to get back." 

"Right away?" 

"I'd like to." 

"What if I begged you? What if I asked _really_ nicely? What if I said I'd DIE if you didn't come with us? What if I said I'd be all worried 'cause you got no umbrella and it's cold---" 

"Then I'd say that you have nothing to worry about. I don't get sick easily." His tone of voice turned icy there. I started to get sick, as in actually physically ill. What had been just strange earlier turned into something almost terrifying now. I wanted more than ever to just go home, sit down with a cup of tea, and relax, without worrying about an umbrella or rain or Gigi's hitting on people right in front of me and putting me in an awkward position in the process. 

So I said something again. Honestly, I was worried about sounding like a nag, but this was getting really annoying and I was really disturbed. "Look, Gigi, let him go. He doesn't want to stick around." Then an idea hit me so I added in really fast, "If he starts walking now, he'll spend less time out in the rain." Yes, that made sense. Gigi couldn't argue with that...although she _could_ find a way; I wouldn't totally put it past her. 

My speaking up got the guy's attention again. Yes, it was written all over his face: he knew me from somewhere. So that means that I must've known him, but for the life of me I couldn't place him. I was frustrated and awkward and sick and cold and wet---and the sick part was getting worse and worse. 

God must've heard me then, or something like that, because Gigi didn't push anymore. "Shit. Fine, fine, don't let me _keep you from leaving_." She said those last few words in a sort of mocking tone of voice. The guy seized his chance and started walking away again. It was the first time I saw him from behind. There was a thick tail of hair hanging partway down his back; it was tied in a loop, which meant that his hair must've been at least twice as long as it looked. Going by the length of the ponytail, that would've made it down to his waist at least. 

_That_ long? 

I didn't get to think much more on it. My stomach felt like it was on fire. Everything about this guy was bothering me so much. There was a little voice in the back of my head and it was saying something over and over again, but I couldn't make it out. That just made me even sicker. 

Gigi saw him off for a bit, then called after him. "Wait!" 

He looked over his shoulder, more than a bit irritated. "What is it?" 

"I didn't get your name!" 

"Oh." He paused a little, kind of like he was searching for something at random to put her off. "It's Sef." 

"Oh. Mine's Gigi. And this's Tifa." 

Wow, that was nice, she actually remembered I was there. 

As soon as he heard my name, Sef turned around completely. He was saucer-eyed. "Tifa?" And there went that recognition again. At that point though, I was too sick to give any of it more thought. Suddenly it got really cold out, more than it had been already. 

"Yeah, that's it," Gigi answered. She looked as confused as I should've been, if I hadn't been feeling so terrible. 

Sef just nodded, to himself it looked like, then turned around and walked away. 

Gigi snorted. "How do ya like that? He says your name like mine didn't even matter. I'm the one who got him to talk to us in the first place..." She stopped mid-gripe; she must've seen me hunched over. That was when she got really concerned. "Hey, what is it? You sick?" 

I opened my mouth to answer her...and ended up hurling all over the curb. 


	3. 3

3

"We're losers," Gigi said, leaning back on the barstool until her back was touching the counter. "We're not supposed to be at work for another six hours, and here we are anyway. You feelin' any better?" 

"A little," I mumbled. Actually, I felt a lot better than I had a few moments ago. After I left my lunch all over the curb by the magazine stand, Gigi turned maternal on me and rushed me over to the nearest place to get me out of the rain, which just so happened to be where we worked. Not that I minded at all, though. It was Jessi's shift then and she worked with some nice people. I got to be pampered a little. 

Of course, Gigi didn't stay in maternal mode for very long. It wasn't her nature. "He _was_ hot though, that guy. That Sef," she corrected herself. "You think he'll show up here ever?" 

I shook my head. "Nah, you probably scared him off." 

I expected her to follow that up with more nudging in my side, but she didn't do anything. Maybe it was because I was sick, but she was also in an agreeable mood too. "Yeah, you're right. He looked like he was scared shitless when I first talked to him. He's probably not worth it." She took a paper napkin out of one of the holders and started tearing it into strips. "He's probably bad in bed anyways." She shot me a corner-of-the-eye stare and winked. 

"You _do_ have a boyfriend, you know," I insisted. My eyes fell to the napkin she was senselessly destroying, and she saw it. 

"I like senseless destruction," she explained with a smile. She said nothing about my boyfriend warning. She started ripping the napkin up faster, until there was nothing left but a pile of shreds. She put them on the counter. 

One of the workers on Jessi's shift started cleaning the bar. Her name was Trish and she reminded me of a chocobo: she was really tall and thin, with a husky voice and hair about as dark as mine. It was always piled all the way up on top of her head. When some of the strands fell out of place they looked like chocobo feathers. Soon she got to the torn-up napkin and threw Gigi a look. "What the hell...?" 

"I like senseless destruction," Gigi repeated, looking over her shoulder, smiling. 

"You're fucked up," Trish said, shaking her head. She grabbed the shredded napkin and went to throw it away. 

Gigi leaned so far back that her head was resting on the bar. "Ain't I?" she called after Trish, and when she got no answer she burst out laughing. "Fear me, you bitch!" she said when she was done. I knew she was trying to be playful, but she always got too harsh. 

Trish didn't answer her, fortunately. That was when Jessi came over from one of the registers, having just finished with two customers. She had traces of mustard on her hands. "Feeling better, Tifa?" she asked politely, looking really concerned. 

I nodded. "Thanks for the aspirin." 

"You're welcome." She turned to Gigi. "So what happened? Tell me." 

I fidgeted in my seat a little. 

"Oh, I'll tell you," said Gigi, turning around in her seat so that she was facing Jessi. "We were at the magazine stand. I was there to buy more intellectual readings on scientific phenomenon, and Tifa was there to buy porn as usual---" 

"Right!" I cut in, sarcastic as ever. I really didn't have to defend myself, since Jessi knew Gigi even better than I did, but I did it anyway. It was a reflex. 

Gigi went right on talking as if I never said anything. "---And then this _guy_ gets behind us..." 

"Ooh," Jessi cooed, leaning forward. 

"He was goddamned _gorgeous_. I mean, I was _stunned_---" 

"And then she closed up her umbrella on me and made me stand there soaking wet while she tried to flirt," I interjected. 

Gigi turned and gave me an angry look, one that I knew too well to take seriously. "_Anyway_... So I politely said hi, and he told me he was from Reine---" 

"What did he look like?" said a very impatient Jessi. Her eyes were wide. "Describe 'gorgeous'." 

"Oh God, he was like, perfect. His whole face... He had green eyes, really, really pretty ones. And... What color hair did he have, Tif? Wasn't it blond? I remember it was really light...and long, really long. It was like, halfway down his back..." 

I never answered Gigi. She was wrong about his hair color though; it wasn't blond. It didn't have any color. It was almost like white. But he wasn't old, so that didn't make sense. I gave myself a minute, expecting to get sick again, but thankfully that didn't happen. By the time I got my head down from the clouds, I missed most of Gigi's raving. Jessi's face was set in the typical teen "oh my God I can't believe it" look. She must've found that stranger to be as hot as Gigi did. 

"Sef?" she asked. "Is that short for something?" 

Gigi frowned thoughtfully. "Hmmm. Know what? I should've asked him that, but I told you, he _really_ wanted to leave. He was getting all pissy about it---" 

Jessi's eyes darted up and over my head. She interrupted Gigi again. "Eep. Customers." She walked back to the register, anticipating them. 

Gigi sighed and turned around on the barstool again so she was facing me. "You know, I could actually travel to Reine to see him. I wonder where he lives there? That place is dangerous---" 

"Don't do that!" I told her. "That's crazy." I didn't know whether or not I should've taken her seriously. Gigi could be really unpredictable. 

But she smiled at me. "You know me better than that! I was just sayin'... God. C'mon, you saw him! How could you say he's not the prettiest guy you ever saw?" 

"I didn't say he wasn't pretty." And really, I didn't. He _was_ kind of pretty, in his own way. But he was downright scary too, in a deep unsettling way. That made him unattractive to me. How could I say a guy was hot after I got done hurling because of him? 

"But you puked right after he left! ...Unless it was out of grief," Gigi said, getting melodramatic again. "Grief that he was leaving! Grief that the hotness is no longer amongst us...!" 

Trish had gone back to cleaning the bar moments ago. She was near us again when she decided to just join our conversation. "What hotness? Who?" She did that sometimes. Sometimes she'd butt in with a question and we'd start talking to her, and other times she'd pass us by while she was working without saying a thing. Either way was pretty awkward for me, but Gigi took it in stride. 

"Some guy we met at the magazine stand," Gigi filled her in. "He was so goddamned hot I could've humped him on the spot. Damn decency laws." 

Trish chuckled. "Georgette _Slut_." 

I knew about her last name joke by then. Gigi told me it a while ago. "They used to tease me about it in school," she said. "You know, take out the T and put in an L and what do you get?" It was coincidental for her too, because it was kind of true. 

But Trish called her Georgette, and that meant a kick in the shins. "Don't CALL me that!" Gigi snapped, starting to rise up off the barstool. "Just 'slut' will do," she added, more calmly then. "Damn bar. You'd have bruised ankles by now if this stupid thing wasn't in the way. Consider yourself lucky!" 

Trish just laughed at her. "It's not _that_ bad of a name." 

"I hate it. I wish I had a nice name." Gigi paused there, then said, "Like yours. Or Tifa's." 

"Huh, I wish I had something else of Tifa's," Trish said. Her eyes fell on my chest. 

Not again. I'd been through this embarrassment too many times before. "Oh no, let's not do the boob thing," I started griping. 

"Oh yes, we're doing the boob thing," Trish said. She threw the cloth she was cleaning the bar with down on the table, then began the usual speech. "If I had boobs as big as yours..." 

If she did, she'd be embarrassed. I was. They attracted a lot of unwanted attention, from both guys _and_ girls. I knew very few people, aside from Barret and Cloud and Cid and everyone else I traveled with long ago, who didn't make a big issue out of them every once in a while. Yuffie had come close to saying something once, if I remembered right, but she never actually said anything to my face. 

"...I'd be flashing them all over," Trish finished. "Just like, 'look at them'!" There she acted it out and stuck out her chest. "I'd wear low-cut stuff all the time..." 

"But she never does," Gigi said. "You don't know how lucky you are, you fucker!" she said to me. 

I was turning ten shades of red. "I _told_ you, I have a scar there..." 

Trish frowned for me. "Aw, that sucks. How'd you get it?" 

"Accident," I replied. "When I was little. Some friends and me were playing near Mount Nibel and I fell and scraped my chest on something." A total lie, needless to say. It was something I came up with when the why-I-didn't-wear-low-cut-shirts conversation came up before. I wasn't about to go telling everyone that I got the scar because I tried to go after Sephiroth in a Mako reactor---no, best my connections with him remain in my head. It was too creepy for me to discuss openly anyway, and it wasn't a good conversation topic. Sephiroth might not have had a face in Quintz, but he sure had a reputation. 

"Mount Nibel? You lived in Nibelheim?" Trish asked. "My aunt lived there years ago." Something clinked in the distance; she looked over her shoulder and found Jessi reaching for some glasses. At her register was a group of guys. Trish seemed to know what they wanted. "Hey, Jessi, wait a minute!" 

Gigi watched them. "Poor thing," she said. "She can't serve liquor 'til she's twenty-one. She probably won't even be working here by then." I knew she was talking about Jessi. I never asked why the girl had been hired if she wasn't young enough to touch alcohol; I assumed that there must've been some kind of behind-the-scenes arrangement between her and Mr. Weiss. In other words, it was none of my business. 

Silence came up then. It must've been a few minutes before the door to The Cafe swung open. It caught my eye, since I wasn't in the middle of conversation. Cloud walked inside. From the look of him it must've stopped raining. His hair and his jacket looked dry. He saw me and walked over to the bar. "Hey," he said simply. 

"Hey, Spike," Gigi said, and Cloud shot her a leer. He was used to her by now, but that didn't mean he liked her. He found her to be irritating actually---he told me so once. 

Cloud looked kind of dejected, so I automatically jumped to one conclusion. "Oh, don't tell me. You weren't fired again, were you?" I was almost pleading with him for that not to be the case. 

He scratched the back of his head the way he always did when he was uneasy. "Yeah," he said. "The guy was a jerk anyway." 

"Cloud!" I whined. "Rent's due next week! I don't want to keep paying all of it myself!" 

He sat down on a barstool beside me. He didn't look the least bit upset and I didn't expect him to. "Don't worry," he told me. "I'll find something else." 

"Cloud..." 

He turned and faced me. "I told you, don't worry." His eyes were sincere and forceful. I loved that look. It was the one that said to me, "You're getting upset over nothing." And maybe I was, but whenever he got fired it brought all my worries to the front of my mind. If he left me I wouldn't know what to do. He'd been a part of my life for too long. Why couldn't he just stick to one job, or pretend he was happy, or... 

"Why don't you work here?" Gigi said suddenly. "Me and Tifa'll work to get Antoine fired and then you can take his place!" 

"Gigi..." I looked over my shoulder. "That's awful!" 

She shrugged. "It was only a suggestion." 

Cloud shook his head. "Nah, I don't think I could work here. I suck at cooking." 

"A lesson I know all too well," I said, smiling a little. 

"Though I did make hot dogs once." 

"Yeah, I'll admit, your hot dogs were good." 

"I owe a lot to package instructions." 

"Me too." 

He smiled. I was already smiling. Then we started that goofy staring thing that we sometimes lapsed into, the kind that made me wonder where we stood when it came to our relationship. It was proof that he liked living with me though, so whenever we did that thing my spirits kind of lifted. It means he's staying, I'd tell myself. 

Trish had come back to where Gigi and I were at the bar. She had that look on her face that said she was intending on being quiet this time around, but when she saw Cloud, her mouth opened. "Don't tell me," she said, pointing at him. "Cloud?" 

Cloud nodded. 

"Yay, I got it right!" she congratulated herself. 

I introduced them when we met before, a while ago. I knew Cloud wouldn't have been offended if she had forgotten, though. 

Then we all got quiet---you know, that really, really awkward kind of quiet where everyone tried not to look at everyone else while trying to think of something to say. It was a funny thing actually, unless you were in the middle of living it out, like in our case. Trish found an easy way out though---she just continued cleaning the bar, working her way down to the other end. 

"I think I should go," Cloud said, looking at either his feet or the floor; I couldn't tell which. 

"Yeah, me too," I agreed. I was feeling better by then, but I wanted to be under my own roof at the moment. I had too much to think about. 

Gigi sort of pouted, but the expression didn't stay on her face very long. "Don't forget," she reminded me, "you need to be back here by seven." She paused, then said thoughtfully, "Unless you're still sick..." 

"No," I said, getting to my feet, "I'll be fine..." 

"---In which case I could show Weiss your little mess out there, if the rain didn't wash it all away. As evidence that you are not fit to work...!" 

"Mess?" Cloud asked, sliding off his seat and looking at me. 

I turned to him. "I'll explain on the way back." 

I said goodbye to everyone and Cloud and I started the walk home. The route from The Cafe back to our house was a twenty-minute walk more or less. 

We talked along the way. He told me he checked the mail before he came down to The Cafe to see if I might be there. We got another letter from Red and Reeve sent us a postcard. In the beginning, when we were traveling, we didn't bother to write to anybody. No one would've delivered our letters anyway, not in some of the cities we visited. Being as stable as it was, Quintz still attempted to have a mail system. Places that didn't rely on ShinRa, like Cosmo Canyon and Wutai, certainly got our letters. Red wrote as often as he could---well, he got someone else to actually write his letters for him, but he always sent something. We usually got one every so many weeks. Yuffie's father sent us letters from Wutai; he must've really been grateful for the materia we sent his daughter home with. Yuffie herself wasn't much of a letter writer, but sometimes she'd add something in. The mail from Wutai tapered off eventually though. Cid, I knew, hated to write, but sometimes we'd get something from Shera. Twice we got something, I think. Reeve... He bounced around from place to place. He didn't seem to be much of a letter writer himself, but he did send postcards. A lot of them had girls in bikinis on the front, which meant that he must be spending a lot of time in Costa del Sol...and probably bought a lot of postcards for future use there. 

The address on the postcards kept changing, but we were able to keep track of Reeve. He said he couldn't wait to see us again, and truthfully, I kind of missed him. Last we saw him was in Kalm when we went to get Marlene. It was the first time we actually met face to face. I was impressed: he was almost nothing like Cait Sith, as if they were two separate people. But the sense of humor was still there, and that was what I liked best about him. 

We would see him again, of course---my birthday was next month, and we'd already sent out invitations for a little party in late February. Nothing big, just a little something to commemorate me turning twenty-two. I didn't want to make a big thing out of it. 

Too, Cloud and I talked about what happened to me earlier that day and the "mess" that was connected to it. I told him about the stranger---I left out his name---and how sick I suddenly got. 

"I tried to come up with some kind of reason for it, but I couldn't," I told him. By then we were midway up Quintz, somewhere between Uptown and Downtown. We were on a bridge; there was nothing before us but a stretch of narrow pavement. To our right was another walkway, just as tiny. The street was sandwiched in between. I was always afraid of getting hit by a car whenever I crossed the bridge. Maybe it was because the pavement was so narrow. 

"That does sound weird," Cloud admitted. "But I don't think it's anything to worry about. Weird things happen to us all the time." He paused there and smiled a little. I understood him completely, recalling all of AVALANCHE's exploits. "I'd just forget about it, if I were you," he advised me. 

Oh, I wanted to believe that, I really did. But I _couldn't_. Talking about it started to make me feel sick all over again. "Maybe," I said. I was eager to end it now. "You're probably right." 

I willed my sickness away. It was all just mind over matter, wasn't it? Or was it really a gut feeling, some kind of warning? Not being able to explain it, that was what really bothered me the most. 


	4. 4

4

It still rained that day on and off, and it remained cold. Not your typical early April weather, which was why I was so thankful for being able to wear pants at work. 

I had all day to sit and think about the little meeting at the magazine stand of earlier, so by now I was convinced that it was all just nothing, like Cloud had said. Besides, worrying made people more vulnerable to colds and things. 

Gigi came to work a few minutes late, wearing the little pleated white skirt. Never mind how it was forty degrees outside; I had a good idea why she did that. She came in with one of those big puffy jackets too, dark blue and almost long enough to make it look like she wasn't wearing anything from the waist down. "Brrr... So cold!" she said when she reached the bar. She made for the break room in back, but before she even got into the hallway Antoine stopped her. 

"You're wearing a skirt? It's like winter out there!" 

Gigi paid him little mind. "So what? A little cold never hurt anyone." She wasn't telling the full story; I could figure out that much. 

Antoine made a little comment about her being late, but she just called him a cock sucker and went on her way. "She looks like a chicken," he muttered resentfully after she disappeared, and I laughed a little. He'd made that remark half to himself, probably to be on the safe side, but when he heard me laugh at it he continued. "You know, those bird legs and that huge jacket... Damn. Just like a chicken." 

I was still giggling by the time Gigi emerged from the back of The Cafe. "What? What's so funny?" 

"Nothing," I said simply. Before she could cut in with something else, I changed the subject. "So why are you wearing the skirt?" 

Antoine threw a glance our way. "That's what I'd like to know." 

"Shuddup, shit face," Gigi snapped at him. Then she turned to me and stated more calmly, "_Because_...! That Sef guy is _bound_ to come back here one of these days! And he might just come back tonight, so..." She trailed off momentarily, then grinned from ear to ear. "When he does, it's bending-over time." 

I could've given myself credit for a.) being psychic, or b.) being a good judge of her character. I decided to go with option b. When it came to the opposite sex, Gigi could actually be predictable. Never mind how she said she wasn't interested in Sef that afternoon. She never gave up so easily. 

"Oh God," Antoine groaned. "I just ate dinner too, a half an hour ago..." 

I was kind of disgusted myself, but I just raised my eyebrows neutrally. Better silent than sorry. 

Gigi chewed Antoine's ass off the way she normally did. "Bite me, you turd lover! It's none of your business anyway!" 

Knowing how Gigi operated, her schemes normally became everyone's business. But as usual, I didn't say anything. 

Work went slow that night, the way it normally did during the last shift. It ended at midnight and as always I walked myself home. From that point life became normal and peaceful again, and it remained that way until the fourth day. 

It was Thursday and another late shift for me. Gigi had worn her skirt every day to work that week, expecting Sef to show up, but he never did until then. I should've taken what happened earlier that night as an omen of returning weirdness or something: Mr. Weiss left early because he got a call from a hospital in Reine saying his wife had been mugged. Too, Antoine had to leave before nine o'clock because his aspiring-actress girlfriend needed to be picked up from a play rehearsal. 

"I can't believe he got a girlfriend," Gigi said. "He's the biggest APE! Who the hell would go out with _him_, in their right mind?" Of course she was one of the first people to hear about that; she made a real effort to keep on top of local gossip. 

But enough digression. It was a little past a quarter after eight when Sef came in. He had no hat on this time, so I finally got a good look at his hair. It was just like I thought it'd been: white. Or silver. Yes, silver was a better word for it. And it was tied back into a little tail, just like last time. He wore that same long black coat too, and it gave him the effect of a shadow as he entered on light feet. He walked with unusual grace, almost like he was dancing across the floor, waltzing, catlike. Like a panther, or someone who did ballet. ...Ballet? All right, that was just dumb, but it popped into my head as I watched him. He picked a table by the window, way off on the right, and sat down with hardly any sound save the legs of the chair scraping against the floor. Against all the low sounds in here it was like a freight train. 

I couldn't believe it. It was Monday's incident about to happen all over again. I was going to get sick and upset and have to leave work early and be up all night worrying. The last time I had several hours to while it away doing other things. Now I had nothing between his latest appearance and me going to bed except for a quick shower once I got home. 

Antoine really didn't take notice of Sef; he had no reason to. Gigi was all excited naturally, so much so that she was practically jumping up and down the moment she saw him come in. She gasped so loud, then did the whole "oh my God it's him it's him it's him" thing. Then when she calmed down a bit she started narrating his every move like a documentary. "He's walking over to the side... He's taking a seat by the window... He's pulling out the chair... He's sitting down... Oh God, I wish I was that chair..." 

Antoine made a little noise that sounded something like "ew." 

Gigi totally ignored him. "God... I _knew_ it! I knew it! I knew he'd come here _sometime_ this week!" She grabbed me by the arm and started shaking me. "Look at him, damn it! Look!" 

I'd been biting on my lip so hard that I managed to draw a little blood. I hadn't even been aware of doing that. "What? I'm looking, I'm looking..." 

"Well don't just stand there! Put some things on the floor so I can pick 'em up! I'm going to go...act casual." She grabbed a cloth, then headed out from behind the bar and started cleaning one of the tables. I noticed that she started on the side of the room opposite from where Sef was sitting. She'd work her way there eventually, I knew. 

I didn't do what Gigi asked me to because I wasn't thinking about it. I was getting that creepy feeling again, but this time I wasn't sick. That had to have been a good sign. I tried recalling what Cloud told me, that it was all just nothing, all in my head. Mind over matter. 

Still, if I could've wished for the guy to disappear, I would've done so. 

With the absence of Gigi nearby, Antoine started talking again. "What's she so excited about anyway? Who's she talking about?" 

I didn't face him when I answered. "The guy sitting over there, by the windows." I didn't point; I just hoped he'd get the idea. My eyes were locked on Sef. He had reading material with him again, a newspaper this time. He was bent over it and the furrow in his brow was so familiar to me. Add that to the funny hair color and it had me thinking, was he right? Had I really met him somewhere before? I went over Monday's incident for the umpteenth time. What if this Sef remembered something that I couldn't? Maybe his memory was sharper than mine. Maybe that's why _he_ recognized _me_, and not the other way around. 

But still, he lived in Reine, and I'd never been there. 

Unless he lived somewhere else prior... 

"You mean the guy all the way over on the side there?" Antoine asked me. He came up behind me now. "Is he going to get something here or what? This isn't a restaurant; I'm not waiting on him..." 

Two customers, a guy and a girl, came in and I moved to one of the registers, waiting for them. When Antoine saw that I was going to handle them, he turned back to staring at Sef. "Take a picture; it lasts longer," I mumbled irritably. He must've heard me, because he moved away. 

"So Gigi likes that guy, or what?" He was at my side again, whispering to me. I turned and opened my mouth to say something, but by then the customers had already reached the register. 

They didn't want much, just two Wutan teas. That tea brought back memories; my mother used to make it a lot back in Nibelheim, before Wutai warred with ShinRa. After ShinRa's victory, anything Wutai-related was sort of downplayed or just discouraged. Not so in towns like Quintz, of course. Actually, I found that it was in independent places like this one that businessmen from Wutai found reliable clientele. 

Antoine made the tea, I gave it to them and they paid for it, and that was it. Gigi stopped cleaning tables soon after the customers sat down. She headed over to the bar. I knew she was going to be impatient by then, so I mentally braced myself. 

"Damn it Tifa, you've gotta start dropping things or something here," she hissed at me through clenched teeth. "I'm gettin' all nervous... My palms are sweaty..." She wiped them on her skirt. 

"I can't drop anything," I told her. "I don't know what to drop without making it look like I'm doing it on purpose..." 

"Well then just do this---" Gigi grabbed a few napkins from a holder and released them from her hand, beyond the bar, where they fluttered to the floor. 

"What the fuck...?" Antoine started. 

"Shut up, nut sack licker," she whispered severely. 

I started giggling. "Stop with those silly names...!" 

She turned on me then. "Shut up, ass lover." As much as she was trying not to smile, it was getting the better of her. "You people're making me more nervous, damn it!" 

While the three of us were being silly, I instinctively threw a glance back over at Sef. He was watching us now. I saw one exotic green eye beholding our commotion. The expression on his face was blank; I couldn't tell what he was thinking. Pretty soon I realized that his look had changed over to recognition again, like back at the magazine stand. 

He was looking at me. Again. 

I froze and stopped laughing. Not again. This was too incredible. Behind me Gigi and Antoine were actually being civilized with each other, but I was too stunned to care. 

"Oh shit, I forgot about the napkins..." Gigi brushed past me then. She went around the bar and made a big display out of bending over to get them. I barely noticed; I was more interested in Sef's reaction. 

He looked at her all right, but his expression was neutral. 

Gigi "accidentally" dropped a few more things on the floor---fortunately unbreakable stuff---and I kept my eye on Sef. After the first time, he paid no attention to her at all. He went back to reading. 

When she was finished, Gigi asked me about his reaction. I told her the truth. 

"Only the first time? What about all the other times?" she fumed. She looked over at him. He was folding his newspaper up and rising from his chair. He made his way over to us. I swallowed. Gigi stood beside me and squeezed my arm. Antoine reached the register first. 

Gigi said nothing. She still said nothing even as Sef walked right by the two of us. He didn't even do so much as glance. He went over to Antoine, ordered something, and the two of us turned and watched while Antoine carried it out himself. I felt awkward. I couldn't tell what was going through Gigi's mind. Just swallow me, I begged the floor. 

Sef must've ordered coffee, because I caught the smell. He waited patiently for everything, and when he finally got it, he paid for it and made his way back to where he'd been sitting. And that was that. 

Gigi's grip on my arm loosened. She was ticked. "That monkey fucker just walked right by me!" she whispered. "Can you _believe_ that?" 

"Maybe he's not interested," I replied. He'd made that obvious from day one. 

"_Not interested_?" Gigi left my side and leaned over the bar. She shouted to Sef just as he was sitting down again. "Hey you! Remember me?" 

He looked up at her. "No," he said slowly. 

Gigi persisted. "'No'? Hello? What about the magazine stand? A few days ago? On Monday?" 

"Don't push him," I warned her. 

Sef looked as though he recognized her then, but his eyes turned icy fast. "Oh... I see. Look, I don't know what you want from me..." 

She wants a lay, I thought. 

"...But I'd rather have you leave me alone. I'm here for peace and quiet." 

Surprisingly Gigi didn't answer him. She was so embarrassed I could feel it. She drew back from the bar, slowly, like she'd been struck. "Bastard," she growled, before she turned and quickly retreated to the back. 

I caught Antoine shooting me a questioning glance. I shook my head. "Let me handle her." 

I went after Gigi and found her in the break room, sitting on a chair. She drew her knees up and folded her arms on top of them. That said "approach with caution" to me, so I stood in the doorway and let her know I was there. I called her name. 

She looked over her shoulder slightly. "Go away." 

I walked into the room and stopped right beside her. "Gigi, look... I tried to tell you, he wasn't interested. Besides, you have a boyfriend---you have Roger. You don't need that guy..." 

"Damn right I don't," she answered me. She didn't look at me that time. "God, what a stupid fucking _jerk_. Did you see the way he looked at me?" She lowered her feet to the floor and faced me now. "Did you see the way he acted? So fucking _cold_. God damn... If I punched him in the heart I'd break my goddamn fist!" 

I didn't know what to say; I exhausted all my best consolatory remarks seconds ago. "Well... He's just not your type," I offered weakly. "You're right though; he _is_ too cold. And spooky," I added, mainly to myself. 

"Spooky? Shit, Tifa, he's a goddamned _creep_! I try to be nice, I try to say hi, I was _hoping_ he'd recognize me the moment he came in... Got all my fucking hopes up for nothing. Fucker." She stomped her foot there, then drew her knees up again. "Just go away, okay? I don't feel like talking right now." 

I felt bad. Even if what Gigi wanted was wrong, considering she already had a boyfriend, I didn't like to see her get so depressed. So I gave her a little hug. 

She looked up at me. "I love you, Tifa. In that non-gay way." 

I chuckled. 

"Now get out," she said curtly, putting her head down. I let her go and made for the door. As I left she added, "Don't say a THING about this to Antoine, okay?" 

"I won't say anything." 

She seemed content at that, so I headed back out front. She was lucky Mr. Weiss had to leave early. 

Antoine and I handled things by ourselves for ten minutes. Sef remained there with us, still seated and still reading, only now he interspersed that with a sip of his coffee. Gigi reemerged from the break room then, back to her old self. And twice as spiteful. 

"He's probably gay," she said out loud. "Girls don't turn him on... I know! I'll bring my four-year-old cousin in here! He's a boy; that oughta make his goddamned evening..." 

We tried to hush her, but it wasn't much use. The night wore on and soon it was nine o'clock. Sef, Antoine, Gigi, and I were pretty much the only people in The Cafe. I knew Antoine had to leave then. He reminded us to lock up as he went, and Gigi told him to go to hell, in so many words. 

That reduced things to just three of us. Sef still didn't leave and Gigi was still angry, probably because Sef was still there and therefore she still had to look at him. Why he was still there, I couldn't say. He might've been really absorbed in what he was reading, but that didn't entirely make sense. He'd been sitting there for nearly an hour. 

Mind over matter, I told myself. I was starting to lose faith in that, though. 

Gigi walked over to the register suddenly and put two gil in there. Then she turned and reached for a shot glass. I knew what she was doing, and it wasn't allowed. "Gigi, you're not supposed to---" 

"Who cares? No one's here but us." She filled the shot glass with beer from the tap, then downed the whole thing like it was nothing. A frequent drinker, then? "Why don't you have one too? Shit, think about what we can get away with now that we're the only ones here!" She paid for another shot, refilled the glass, and downed that one. 

I was hesitant. I _could_ get away with doing that, I realized, and for the love of God, I felt so uptight. Alcohol probably would've done me good. But I'd never been drunk on a job before, so the idea of breaking that record was kind of repulsive. I didn't want to drag myself down to Gigi's level simply because she was upset. But I was upset too, so wasn't that enough of an excuse? 

"Coward," she teased me. She was downing a third shot then. "C'mon! Who cares? No one'll know!" Famous last words. She filled the glass a fourth time, then reached for a new glass, filled that one up, and gave it to me. "Here. Drink. Just remember to pay for it; I can't shell out for both of us." 

"But I've never been drunk on the jo...hell." I took the shot glass, then reached in my pants pocket. I didn't think I had much on me; I never carried much money to work. I had no reason to. "Oh, damn. Just two ten-gil pieces." I looked up at Gigi and frowned. 

"Well then put them both in! That's what...ten shots right there? C'mon! We're gettin' paid again tomorrow!" She held out her hand for the money. I still hesitated. "Is that all you have left? What do you have to buy anyway? Nothing important, right?" 

"Well... Nothing really, but I like to have a little something on hand just in case---" 

"And you'll get that tomorrow! C'mon! It ain't fun gettin' drunk alone! I'm miserable, damn it. I wanna get drunk and forget about everything. C'mon, Tif! Drink and we'll gradually get merry!" 

I laughed at her last comment. But I didn't think she understood: I wasn't like her; I didn't find rebellion to be fun. Then again, I didn't always play by the rules either, but it was better to work under them and keep your job than break them and lose it. Besides, rules could always be bent a little... 

Like now? "What if Mr. Weiss finds out? We're gonna be in deep---" 

Shit. Deep shit. I didn't get to finish my sentence because Gigi swiped my last twenty gil and deposited it in the register. "He won't find out, if we don't make too big a mess." She smiled that big smile of hers, raised her glass a little, and downed her fourth shot. Or was that the fifth? 

I downed my first then, which was about the time that something hit me. "Wait, you didn't pay for that last one!" 

She shrugged. "I put it on your tab." 

"My _tab_?" 

"Yeah, that twenty gil sitting in there." 

"No! No because I'm not shelling out for you! Pay up!" If it was one thing I was going to put my foot down about, it was money. I was no rich girl, and it sadly didn't grow on trees. 

Gigi's face turned red. "I don't think I have any more money, actually..." Her eyes started darting here and there. 

"Gigi!" 

"Yes?" she asked sheepishly. 

I advanced on her. "You owe me." And if she thought that drinking would wipe that off my memory, she had another thing coming. 

"Jesus, okay, fine! Next pay..." She filled her glass up again. I did the same. 

And that was our descent into drunkenness. We did that for maybe ten or fifteen minutes, and I forgot how many shots we'd downed, but almost needless to say it was a lot. When Gigi started getting really slaphappy, I stopped her _and_ myself. I was only a few shots behind her, so I was getting pretty silly myself. 

And uninhibited. We started leaning on the bar and talking about things. The whole time, Sef looked like he was trying to pretend we weren't there...or maybe his reading was still occupying most of his thoughts. I got the feeling that he didn't approve of what we were doing. Maybe he'd come over and lecture us about it...for some reason. Because he looked like the stern type. 

"I don't think he likes what we're doing," I said to Gigi. 

"Meh... So? He's not my goddamned father," she slurred. A little pause. "Say, when you told me he looked, the first time I was bendin' over...what did he look _like_? Like, was he all happy, like 'Hot damn!' happy? Was 'e smilin', or..." 

"No actually he was...frowning," I said, frowning myself, imitating his face. "Kind of like this... See?" I showed Gigi. 

"What? What the fuck, that's NOT how you look at someone who's showing off her butt in your general direction..." 

"And he didn't look again, all the other times." 

"Because he's GAY, Tifa! He's proven that earlier..." 

"Mmm well, he was staring at me," I blurted out. Oops. Unintentional spill of interior monologue. Damn drunken state that I was in... 

Gigi's silliness turned to fury. "What?" she squeaked. "You? Why you? Goddamnit... It's those tits, I'll bet..." 

"Hey!" 

"Guess he's not gay after all... Men. I hate 'em." 

"I'm more than just 'tits', Gigi." 

"Not to some guys out there you ain't. Shit, I should've known... He probably likes you. Fucker. He said your name back then like I wasn't even there..." 

"You try too hard." 

"You're probably makin' him hard." She grinned like a Cheshire cat. I slapped her in the arm, not knowing why I did that really, only that I felt I should lash out. She slapped me back on my arm. I slapped her a second time and she returned that too. When I went to hit her a third time, she dodged me---albeit very awkwardly. She practically tripped over her own feet. "Damn it, Tifa... Don't hit me..." 

"Why not? You hit me!" 

"I c'n hit you, 'cuz you're stronger than me..." 

"That isn't an excuse!" 

"Yup it is. You hit too hard. You're so big and strong..." 

I walked over until I was staring her in the face. "Don't say that; it makes me sound like a guy. 'Big and strong'..." 

"Well you are!" She put her arms around my shoulders then. "Dance with me, Mister Tifa." 

"Oh, you disgust me..." But I danced with her anyway, for the sake of dancing. We were doing some messed up version of the waltz, or something. Then Gigi released me and slapped me again. I tried to hit her back and she ran away. So I chased her, round and round all the tables. Sef was watching us, but I was too smashed to get a good look at his expression. Gigi started grabbing random salt shakers and tossing their contents in my direction. Usually she was way off target though. We spent a long time goofing off and doing stupid things, and the whole time it looked like Sef was keeping an eye on us. But he said nothing about what we were doing. I would've been freaked out again, or just confused, or both, but I had too much blood in my alcohol system, so I really couldn't think... 

We were making a small mess into a huge one, but we didn't know it yet. We were losing track of time too, and we didn't realize it until Sef said something. "So," he started, as calm as you please, "what time do you close, normally?" 

Close? I shot a tipsy glance at the clock on the wall. "Oh, crap. Gigi, it's five after! It's five after twelve!" And there were shot glasses that needed washing, and a floor that needed to be swept, and a building that had to be locked up...all of which should have been done five minutes ago. 

Gigi looked disbelievingly at the clock, but then her eyes widened. "Oh SHIT! This place should've closed five minutes ago!" She looked back at me, covering her mouth. Her face was beet red, so much so that all her freckles disappeared. 

"We're so fired!" I groaned. "C'mon, we've gotta clean up..." I reached out and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her back to the bar. 

She was delirious. "Oh, we're screwed! We're so fucked! We're in the deepest, darkest shit... We're in shit so deep we'll need a boat to cross..." 

I laughed in spite of the situation. She always said such ridiculous things. "Look, be serious. Wash the shot glasses, okay? I'm gonna go take care of the floor." 

"We won't get out 'til, like, twelve-thirty! We should just go!" 

"No, if Mr. Weiss sees that tomorrow we're fired! Just do it!" I abandoned Gigi and ran in back, got a broom and a dustpan, and set about the wonderful task of cleaning up spilt salt. Well, I realized, I probably should've swept the floor anyway. Earlier. 

My sweeping took me close to Sef's table. To my shock---which was slightly numbed by my being drunk, but still present anyway---he started talking to me. "I admit, I didn't come here only for peace and quiet." 

I stopped sweeping and looked at him. My head was swimming. "What do you mean?" 

He turned around in his chair so that he was facing me. "I've been trying to run into you again for days. I wasn't entirely sure if you worked here, but it was the only thing I could go with." 

Um, wow? ...No, that called for an "oh my God." Or a "what the hell is he talking about?" I was too drunk to pick from the choices, so I just gaped. 

He continued. "I wanted to catch you right before you got out. Shows how much my timing is off." He leered. "I don't want to impose, but I would appreciate it if you'd allow me to walk you home. I have a few things I want to ask you." 

I struggled to swallow everything he said. Our eyes locked. I cursed myself for being so drunk; I couldn't even read their expression. But God, they were so forceful. For a moment I thought they were the only things keeping me from falling right then and there. That power frightened me, because I knew where I'd seen it before. But no, he couldn't be who I thought he was. He couldn't be that awful name that just ran across my conscious thoughts like a bolt from the blue. No, I was too drunk. I was hallucinating. Yes. Of course. 

I nodded. Yes, he could walk me home. Did I have a choice? 


	5. 5

5

"Good," he said. 

I went back to cleaning the floor, getting up as much of the salt as I could. My head had been swimming before; now it was spinning. I just said yes to him walking me home and I wasn't even sure who he was...or who he _wasn't_. I didn't see people in Quintz who resembled a certain unmentionable bastard every day. Cloud's mind-over-matter suggestion grew more and more faint in my head until I could hardly hear it. Whatever was going on, I knew I couldn't try wishing it away anymore. 

When I finished sweeping the floor, I shot a dizzy glance at the bar. Gigi was gone. I guessed she was in the break room, so I went back there. Sure enough, there she was, grabbing her coat and things. 

"Did you wash the glasses?" I asked her. 

She nodded. "Yup. There was only two..." She trailed off, then gave me a funny look. 

"What?" 

She walked over to me and started whispering. "I saw you talking to him. What'd you say?" 

"What's THAT supposed to mean? I didn't say anything---" 

"Well you must've said SOMETHING! I don't think he was talking to himself!" 

"If you're accusing me of flirting with this guy, you're way off the beaten trail---" 

"What'd he say to you, then?" 

I told her everything. I had nothing to hide, aside from that growing unsettling feeling again, which I hoped wouldn't turn into nausea anytime soon. "All he said was that he'd been trying to run into me for a couple of days, and he found me here, and he wants me to let him walk me home, because he has a few things he wants to ask me. That's it. No date invite, no phone number exchanging, no sweet nothings in his ear..." 

"Hmmm. The walking home thing sounds like a..." 

"A what? It sounds downright scary to me!" 

"Well...actually, he sounds like a cop. You know, the whole 'I'm following you so I can ask you things' deal." 

I paused. Oh God, she could be right, couldn't she? He could be an undercover cop! Damn, I should've known by the outfit. Either that or the alcohol was doing the reasoning for me. "Hey, you know, you might be right..." 

And that was when Gigi gasped loudly. "Oh my God! Maybe I am! What if he's here to arrest us? What if he's here to make sure we closed on time? What if he hauls us in for throwing condiments at each other? ...That'd be damn embarrassing," she added calmly. "Arrested in April for salt abuse..." Then she laughed. 

I took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shaking. "Be serious! You don't know what that means! We gotta act normal now! C'mon." I grabbed her coat and stuffed it into her arms. "Act sober and maybe we won't get in that much trouble." 

"Tifa, you want me to waste a perfectly good buzz acting _sober_? What PLANET are you from?" Gigi slurred, putting her coat on. Then she narrowed her eyes at me and got silly again. "You hail from Pluto, don't you?" 

"You're not buzzed," I told her. "You're trashed. C'mon, let's go." 

I got my coat, threw it on, grabbed her by the arm, and left the break room. Back in front, Sef was standing by his table. He tucked his newspaper into his coat. Our eyes met again, but this time there didn't seem to be anything scary attached to it. We just looked at each other for a second or two. He might have smiled at me; I wasn't too sure. It wasn't something I saw him do before, so it might've been imagined or just very subtle. Whatever it was, I liked it. 

I felt less irritated and worried. Vaguely remembering that Gigi and I hadn't paid for our last several shots, I walked over to the register to see how much was in there. "Gigi?" 

No answer. 

"Gigi?" I called again, getting frustrated. 

"Huh?" 

She'd gravitated over to Sef I saw, and it was there that she spun around to face me. Poor girl, she really had something against defeat, didn't she? 

Sef didn't seem so bothered by her now. 

"We didn't pay for the last couple of shots," I told her. 

"Well, how much short are we?" 

"I dunno, probably a lot. When did we stop paying?" 

"No idea..." 

"Gigi!" 

"What? It wasn't just me!" 

Ah, she was right, but that didn't change things. I tried to go back over how much we'd drunk. I'd say that after Gigi's third shot, she probably had eight more, and I probably had the same amount after dropping twenty gil in the register. Eight, that was good. Eight was a lucky number. Times two meant sixteen, with two gil per shot bringing the grand total to thirty-two gil. Counting the twenty already in there from me, that meant we needed twelve gil. Yes, that had to be right. I couldn't be too far off. "Gigi, we need twelve more gil in here." 

"Are you sure?" 

Um, kind of? I guess? "Yeah." 

"Well I don't have any more money; I TOLD you that..." 

"Twelve gil?" 

Sef's voice. He spoke up so plainly it startled me. "Yeah," I said, slowly. 

I watched him walk over until he was across from me, on the other side of the bar. He reached into his pants pocket and took out something---a wallet, I think---and opened it up. He counted out a few gil pieces, then reached over to give them to me. I was a bit confused...and surprised. When I didn't take his money right away, he said "here" and I was animated again. I held out my hand and he dropped the gil into my palm. The coins were still warm from his touch. 

I looked down at them, counted them quickly, and then looked back up at him. "What for?" I managed, following that up with a hasty why, since I already knew the answer to the first question. Damn it, I was too drunk for my own liking. 

"Because I owe you," he answered me. He studied me for a moment before adding, "More than you realize." 

Instincts told me to ask what he thought he owed me for, but I ignored them. There was something so sad about the way he spoke and it touched me. I was still again. One way or another, I knew that his sadness ran very deep, meaning I had blundered upon a scar...or actually, he had revealed it to me indirectly. An idea hit me then, that maybe I should give it a really good look and see if I couldn't do something about it. Problem was, it hurt me to even think about it. His pain was contagious. 

I realized why then: I was looking into his eyes. Why did that keep happening? It was almost as if I had no control over doing it. I wondered briefly if he felt the same way. Then Gigi whined about leaving and I kissed and made up with reality. "Oh... Wow... Thanks." I just said wow, didn't I? Oh, I was such an idiot. "Sorry, I don't know what I'm going on about," I explained. "Gotta quit drinking..." For some reason that last statement struck me as funny, probably because it made me sound like an alcoholic---how often did I drink, anyway?---so I burst out laughing. 

I heard Gigi stamp her foot impatiently. "Can we LEAVE?" 

"Yup, we can now." I dropped the money into the register and walked around the bar. Sef started taking charge at this point, which I found a little strange until I remembered how drunk Gigi and I were. It made sense that someone sober walked me home...though what about her? "Hey Gigi, are you okay walking by yourself?" 

"Eh?" 

"Oh, never mind." I turned to Sef; I had a little idea. "Can you do me a little favor?" 

He raised a brow. "Depends." 

"Gigi doesn't live far from here, only a few minutes' walk... Could we swing by her place before we go to mine? I don't want her to walk by herself when she's so drunk..." 

"Yeah! Clearly I'm too drunk to stand!" She made a big show out of staggering over to Sef's side, where she clung to his left arm. "Damn, you're strong," she observed, poking his bicep. Sef regarded her benignly, the kind of look you'd use with a fly that was buzzing around. 

"If it's more than a few minutes' walk," he started, "I'll have to turn around and leave you halfway." 

Gigi and I got upset at the same time. "Hey!" 

"'Hey' nothing. Do the both of you have all your things?" 

We nodded. 

"Then we move out." Sef turned and headed for the door. 

"'Move out'... Oh, he's _such_ a cop," Gigi whispered to me after he passed. 

"Mmm" was all I said. "Move out" didn't remind me of a cop. It reminded me of an army, a soldier's term. 

"Wonder what he wants you for?" Gigi continued. She looked at me suspiciously, her eyes all glittery mischief. "Wonder what you did that he wants to talk about? You got a criminal record I don't know about?" 

"Oh, be quiet," I retorted, nudging her in the ribs. 

We shut the lights and made sure everything was generally okay---as best we could anyway, given our present lack of sobriety---and then we left, locking the door once we got outside. Then we crossed the street, Sef walking ahead of us. He was really long-legged, so it was hard to keep up with his strides. Gigi got him to slow down eventually, and he resigned to walking behind us for the trip so he wouldn't end up speeding ahead again. 

Gigi and I could barely walk in a straight line. We passed the time with pointless gossipy stories and silly jokes. The three of us had been walking for maybe two or three minutes when Sef asked how much further Gigi's home was. 

"Not long," she replied, unusually cheery. "Justa few more minutes... Shit, I said it was gonna be five minutes! ...Didn't I?" 

"A _few_ minutes," I clarified. 

"Oh, well, 'few' is like five anyway. Say, what did you want to ask Tifa about, anyway?" 

I was walking up ahead; Gigi had moved behind me to be beside Sef. I looked over my shoulder at her, hoping to catch her eye and warn her without saying anything that she probably shouldn't ask things like that. She didn't look my way, so I turned around and pulled her toward me. 

"Don't ask him stuff like that!" I whispered harshly. "It's probably top-secret!" Or something. Heck, we already established the possible cop thing. 

Gigi brushed me off. "Pfft. So what? Inquiring minds want to know!" She went back to Sef. "You don't mind spilling a little, do you?" she asked brightly. "Come on!" 

"It's not for your ears," Sef came back at her smoothly. 

I got a bit unnerved again, but I said nothing. I shivered inside my jacket. 

Behind me, Gigi snorted. "Okay! Fine!" She paused a little, then added obnoxiously, "Yes sir, officer, sir!" 

Sef sounded confused. "What?" 

"You heard me! Don't try to hide it! I know what you're here for!" I looked back again and found Gigi poking at Sef accusingly. "Did anyone ever tell you how cute you are?" she added as an afterthought. "I'd recognize those eyes anywhere... Mako eyes!" The way she said that, you would've thought she'd made a major discovery. "All glowy and stuff... I think I saw those once, on a guy I dated..." 

Mako eyes? Come to think of it, I saw a few of those myself, when I was traveling with Cloud and Barret and Marlene. A few wayward SOLDIERs, with no place to go and nothing to do, no ShinRa to keep them in line. "Move out"... Then I was right; Sef _had_ been in an army. ShinRa's army. He had been a SOLDIER. 

Like Cloud. 

Maybe, then, he was someone I met a while ago? An acquaintance? A passerby? 

Gigi was getting carried away. "So then, officer, if I told you I was a bad girl... Would you arrest me then? Would you read me my rights?" She drew herself closer to him. "I'm hoping you can and will hold it against me." She leaned against his arm as she walked, wrapping one hand around it and stroking it idly with the other. 

"I'm not with the police," Sef spoke flatly. 

"Yeah, sure you aren't! That's what you _want_ us to think!" 

"No, that's the truth... What are you doing?" 

"I'm trying to find your handcuffs...!" 

The footsteps behind me came to an abrupt stop. I turned around fully and found Sef with his hands on Gigi's arms, holding her back. She was looking up at him, terrified. 

"Hands down, arms at your sides," he ordered. 

"Yes, sir," Gigi squeaked. 

Sef stared her down for a time, then said, "Now, march." 

I stifled a giggle. This was too good not to laugh at, seeing someone boss Gigi around. 

"March?" she repeated. 

"Yes. Go!" 

"Eeeee! Okay! ---Er, yes, sir!" Gigi was off in the blink of an eye and Sef and I started walking again. When Gigi's apartment building came into view, she let Sef know, and he told her to march double-time. 

"What's double-time mean?" she asked. "I never knew what that meant..." 

"It means run," said Sef. 

"Oh. Okay! Yes sir!" And she was off, with me laughing at her expense. 

Inside the apartment building, we took an elevator up to the fourth floor where Gigi lived. I'd been to her place a few times, but I still didn't know my way around very well. Normally Gigi came to visit me rather than vice-versa. When we got out, we went down the hall to her door, where she unlocked it and we all went inside. She turned on the lights so we could see. 

I was really tired, so I sought out her couch and flopped down on it. In front of me was a little coffee table with a few magazines and things scattered over its surface. Most of them were the usual girly-glamour stuff I could expect from her, but one or two of them were newspapers. And surprise, surprise, I saw Sef walking over to browse them soon enough, interest in his eyes. 

Funny, but for someone so quiet and stoic, he had a great presence. It filled the whole apartment. In fact, the room actually made him seem physically bigger. 

Gigi was at his side in seconds. I put my feet up on her coffee table subconsciously and she bitched at me. "Hey, hey! Feet down, Tif!" 

I stuck my tongue out at her, then laughed. 

"I oughta go do that at your house," she threatened, until Sef cut her off. 

"May I?" he asked Gigi, indicating the newspapers. 

"Wha? Oh, yeah, sure, whatever. 'Swhat they're there for." 

Sef knelt before the table and opened one. The way he paged through it, it seemed like he knew what he was looking for. He stopped eventually and pointed to one of the articles. For the first time I noticed that he wore gloves, black ones. "That's the one." He looked up at me for a second, then at Gigi, who was leaning against him again, smiling drunkenly. "Here. Look." He tapped the article twice. 

I sat up on the couch to get a better look. Everything was upside-down from where I was. Since I was too tired to get up and look at it from the other side, I just sat back again. 

"Huh? At what?" Gigi left his shoulder and leaned over the newspaper. Her eyes landed on the article. "Whuzzat?" She squinted at it. 

"Look at it," said Sef. 

That she did, and her eyes widened a bit. "Hey! That's YOUR name!" She pointed to a spot on the page. "'Sef'," she read. "It's in quotes though. Why's that?" 

"Because that's the only name the staff knows me by. I don't give them my full name." 

"Why not?" 

"It's a very long story. Which," he said, rising to his feet, "is one I don't wish to tell." A pause. "You should read that; you may find it interesting." He smiled there, a little bit. 

Gigi smiled back at him. "Ah, yeah, okay... Never knew you wrote..." She situated herself before the newspaper and pretended to read. Faking anything wasn't Gigi's strong suit; it was so obvious whenever she tried. 

Sef's eyes went from Gigi to me. "We should get going, if you want to get home before one." 

Gigi griped at that. "Aw, don't leave! I'm lonely...and drunk! Drunk and lonely..." 

I was on cloud nine, or maybe one of the lower-level clouds. It felt like a cloud, at least---the couch. Very comfy. "Hmmm? Oh, yeah, right, we should..." Cloud, hmmm. Cloud. I wondered how Cloud was doing, but then I remembered that he was probably asleep by now. 

I tried to get to my feet, but for some reason the force of gravity was set against me. Sef was standing before me, separated by the coffee table, watching me struggle, expressionless. I didn't remember actually saying something, but I must have, because he suddenly reached for me. I reached out to him. 

My hand ended up in his. Normally, I wouldn't have given that kind of thing a second thought. Who would? No big deal, just someone helping you up. 

But this was a big deal. A thousand things just shot through me the moment we touched. His hand was warm, warm and hard beneath the glove. It said a lot about how strong he was, and that was just a small part of him, for heaven's sake. He was probably strong enough to pick me up by my hand, toss me over his shoulder like a tiny doll, and carry me home that way. And judging by how broad his shoulders looked, that might not have been a bad thing. 

I got to my feet after what felt like an eternity of just thinking about us touching, and he let me go then. I looked at him for the millionth time, and he looked back at me. 

There was a flash of something else now, but this time it was pain again. His pain, that emotional ache that he was bottling up inside. I felt weak in the knees almost, it surprised me that much. But I stood standing. Did he know how much he was showing me, just by looking back at me? Just by looking into my own eyes? 

Oh, it was the alcohol. It had to have been. I looked away, regretful of having to break the moment, but at the same time knowing that I couldn't just stand there like a dope. That wouldn't get me home, back into my bed. God was I tired. 

I noticed Gigi had been staring at us suspiciously. How long had Sef and I been looking at each other? Even being drunk didn't curb that girl's suspicion. In spite of her look though, she begged me to stay over---she lived by herself, and being as drunk as she was, she wanted some company then. I had to turn her down, though. Sef shot me a look that read that he wouldn't leave until he got to talk to me, and I wanted to be back under my own roof. 

I bid Gigi goodnight. "Stop by tomorrow, around noon," I reminded her. "Remember? We have to pick up our pay." 

I was pretty sure she heard me. Sef and I left, and that began our walk back to my place, in Uptown Quintz. 

I was still slaphappy, only now there was nervousness to go with it. Gigi wasn't around, so I was alone with this stranger that I'd been making an unusual amount of eye contact with. When I wasn't acting so silly, he slipped in his questions. They seemed harmless enough, so I answered them without hesitation. 

The first question he asked me came when we passed The Cafe again, on our way north. "So then you _do_ live in this city?" 

"Yeah. The walk's only twenty minutes from here." Twenty minutes... I'd probably fall asleep on the way. 

"You didn't always live here, did you?" 

That question took me by surprise. "No, I've only been living here for a few months... Why, do I look foreign?" 

There was a moment's pause before he answered. "Yes," he said. 

"Ah." I nodded, and then we were quiet again for a few minutes. 

We crossed the bridge flanked by the narrow walkways. I was too drunk to be nervous of getting hit by a car now. Besides, look what I had by my side: a guy who looked like he could lift a car over his head. I chuckled at that thought, and he heard me. 

"What are you laughing at?" 

"Oh, nothing. Just thinking." I looked up at him. He must've been timing his strides so that he could walk beside me the whole time. His movements were very quiet. Here was grace I couldn't hope to match. It was alien, but beautiful to watch. 

More quiet, then the next question. "Do you live here alone?" 

"Oh, no, I live with a friend of mine." 

A little pause, then, "Would that friend go by the name of Cloud Strife?" 

I stopped walking. My eyes grew wide. "How'd you know that?" 

Sef stopped accordingly and held me with those unusual eyes of his. He opened his mouth to say something, then reconsidered, then finally said, "Let's just say that I know him from somewhere." 

"Where?" 

"Let's not get into that. Are we almost there yet?" 

"Oh...yeah, just a little ways more." 

We were coming up on residences now, but not yet near my own. I started complaining about being too tired to move on. Things got kind of fuzzy for me; I thought I was going to collapse right there on the sidewalk. Sef didn't seem too pleased about this, but when it became pretty clear that I didn't have the strength to move my own legs, he offered to carry me. His mannerisms said that he really didn't want to be bothered, but his eyes said that he didn't mind that much. If it would speed me on my way home, it couldn't be a bad thing, right? He offered me his hand and I took it, and from there he drew me up and off the ground. The whole world just spun, then pretty soon I realized that I was far above the sidewalk. I was floating, there in his arms. The sky was right before me, or so it looked, and I imagined I could pick off one of the stars, like petals off a flower. Pretty... And there was Sef, looking down at me. All I could see were his eyes, Mako green, shining like stars themselves. 

Something hit me then. "I know you," I blurted out. I could hardly recognize my own voice. 

Sef stopped walking suddenly. I saw fear in his eyes, but more importantly, I saw vertical pupils too. For the first time since I ran into him on Monday, I noticed them. He had eyes like a cat. 

He looked like he was about to say something to me, but I cut him off again. The words were just flowing out of me, like the tide at dusk. "I do. I know you. You look so familiar..." 

"No," he said at last. "You only think I do." 

"No, I'm sure of it..." I reached up for something---I wasn't quite sure what---and I was rewarded with a lock of his hair, one of the shorter ends that had come loose from his tail. It was just like I thought it was, silvery, and in the starlight it was shining. There was something awful, terrible, about its beauty. "I do know you. You're..." 

His eyes were locked on me. He was waiting for me to say something. 

But I couldn't say it. I wouldn't. Because Sephiroth was dead, and if I said his name, he might come back to life. No, I was imagining things. Lots of things in life were coincidental; this was just one of them. It had to be a coincidence. Dead people didn't come back to life. 

Yes. Coincidences, all of them. The eyes, the hair, the body...coincidences. 

He walked onward, still holding me. Apparently he'd grown impatient of waiting for me to speak. I was glad; I didn't want to say what I thought. He might've been insulted if I had. 

I guided him all the way up to the home Cloud and I shared. Along the way, I noticed that I wasn't cold, never mind how the weather had been when I first came to work earlier. That whole walk home was dreamlike; I couldn't remember where it began or where it would end or if I wanted it to end. I was half-asleep when Sef asked me another question. 

"Just one more thing. How did you get here?" 

"Hmmm?" 

"You said you're not from here. So how did you find this place?" 

"Oh... Well, me and Cloud and Barret and Marlene, we were traveling around... We didn't know what to do with ourselves after it was all over... You know, Meteor and Holy and Sephiroth and all... Oh, we're almost there..." I lazily pointed ahead to my house, which I thankfully raised my head in time to recognize. 

Sef carried me as far as the walkway that led to the porch. There he put me on my feet, gently. I slid out of his arms like water. I felt like water, or like air actually, like I could've just floated away if I wanted to. 

"Will you be all right, walking all the way back to Reine?" He lived there, right? I remembered that. 

He nodded. "I'll probably be more tired than usual once I get back, but yes, I'll be fine." He turned and made to leave. 

I was spellbound, for one reason or another. It was only when his coat fluttered by me that I felt compelled to call after him. "Wait!" 

He stopped, and turned around. "Yes?" 

"Thank you. For walking me home." 

"You're welcome." He made to go again. 

"Wait, you said you knew Cloud, right?" 

This time, Sef looked a little cross. He didn't reply right away, but his expression gradually softened. Then at least he spoke. "No, I don't know anyone by that name." 

Now _that_ wasn't the confirmation I wanted to hear. I could've sworn he said he knew a Cloud Strife while he was walking me home. I couldn't have imagined that. "But you said---I thought you said---" 

Sef shook his head. "No, you must have imagined it. I never said anything like that. I don't know any Cloud." 

"No..." 

"Yes. Look, you're drunk; I probably said something that sounded like that name and you misinterpreted..." 

"But I _swear_---" 

He shook his head again, and the argument was over. "No, Tifa. I said nothing like that." He looked ready to leave again, before he stopped himself. "Oh, that's right---do you have work tomorrow? I might drop in again..." 

"You would?" I gaped at him. "Oh... Um, well, not tomorrow, but I'll be up at The Cafe around noon to get my pay. And my schedule for next week." 

"I see" was all he said. Then at last he began to walk away. I felt no need to hold him back; I had nothing more to ask. He wasn't a cop; he wasn't just some weirdo stalking me. He certainly wasn't who I thought he was either; I'd already convinced myself that the resemblance was a coincidence. Dead people didn't come back to life. That made sense. Yes, he was just someone who waltzed into my life for one reason or another. And he wrote for a newspaper. And he was nosy and asked a lot of questions. 

"Goodnight," I said. I didn't think he heard me, but I didn't know who I was saying goodnight to at the time. 

I turned and made my way up to the porch and my doorstep. The porch was raised about two or three steps off the ground, so by standing on it I could watch Sef go a little further before I finally turned in. And that was exactly what I did. I watched him while he walked, swiftly and silently like a cougar, his long tail of silver hair like a shimmering stripe down his back. 

So much pain, so much pain in him... I could feel it. And I wanted to heal it. I wanted to embrace it, or him rather, and make it go away. His hurting was calling out to me. It called out whenever our eyes met. For a moment I wondered if anything was a coincidence. 

I can heal it, I thought after him. I can make the pain disappear. 

It started to drizzle then, but I didn't notice. 


	6. 6

6

Clarity. 

Unusual clarity, the kind you got when you woke up after a night of drinking. Everything seemed sharper, but at the same time you were numb to it. That was what I had right now. 

I was in my bed, feeling like I was lost in a dream. The window was open, but I wasn't cold; a warm breeze was wafting through. Fickle April weather, cold one day and warm the next... Too, there was that nice, earthy smell of rain. I never liked rainy days much, but I always loved their scent. Even cloudy days had their good points. 

The sheets were in a big heap at my feet. I was staring up at the ceiling thoughtlessly. ---Er, well, not totally thoughtlessly. I was thinking about a lot of things while I was tracing the cracks up there with my eyes. 

I didn't remember anything after watching Sef walk away. Somehow, I managed to get into my pajamas and into bed. The scent of rain brought all the memories of last night back to me. I was thinking about how Sef seemed to be hiding something, something very painful. He was hurting badly, and I thought in my drunken state that I could do something about it, that I could heal his tremendous ache. 

But who was I kidding? I was no healer. I was just an ordinary woman who occasionally managed to get into situations that were too big for her. 

I remembered something else too while I was lying there thinking. I remembered how much Sef resembled---of all people---a certain someone who'd been dead for two years now, just about. It was really odd, how much they were alike, but I assured myself that it was only physical. Just a whole big bunch of coincidences. Yep. Absolutely. As far as personality went, Sef was no Sephiroth. He wasn't crazy. 

Besides, like I always said, dead people didn't come back to life. It just didn't happen. 

Thinking about that made me think of Aeris. After her death, I spent a lot of sleepless nights dreaming and crying and agonizing over it, wishing that she'd somehow come back to us. Regretting having let her go off on her own, stuff like that. I missed her like hell. 

My eyes felt swollen and wet. I was doing what I hadn't done in years over her death. Oh, sure, the wound was a healed one, but I'd been picking at a scar so to speak. I sat up in bed and wiped the tears away. 

What time was it? I gave my bedside clock a good look. Eleven-eleven. Four ones. I heard somewhere that whenever all the clock digits showed the same number, you were supposed to make a wish. I didn't know what to wish for, so I let the opportunity go. 

Then something else hit me---pay. Work. At noon. Gigi would be over in less than an hour. Then I heard something clanging downstairs and I realized that Cloud was in the kitchen. He must be trying to cook something. 

There goes the house, I thought, smiling. Well, I didn't smell anything burning, so maybe he was doing all right. I got to my feet and headed downstairs. I made my way to the kitchen. Along the way, I picked up the smell of bacon. "Cloud!" 

He answered me with a "not now." 

I reached the kitchen and found him at the stove, lording over a frying pan, spatula in one hand. And lo and behold, there was bacon in the pan, sizzling away. I was stupefied. "You're cooking again?" 

He looked over his shoulder at me. The corner of his mouth curled into a smile. "Yeah. I felt like giving it a shot." 

I walked over to his side and peered down into the pan. "Hey, it's coming out nice!" 

"Oh? I wasn't so sure. I'm just guessing here." 

"Well, that's what cooking's mostly about. Guessing, common sense, stuff like that." 

"Hmmm," he said, and then he was still. A few moments passed, silence filled only by the sounds of frying bacon. My stomach was begging for a strip or two. Soon Cloud shot me another look, a more...mischievous one I'd say, and asked me, "So. How was work last night?" 

I gaped. Work? What happened at work again? Oh... "Oh, uh, yeah, it was fine." 

Cloud's smile widened. "You came home piss-drunk. Don't you remember?" 

"Oh, yeah, I do, I just didn't remember what happened after I..." After Sef walked me home. 

I thought Cloud would be upset with me, for one reason or another, but instead he leered at me, and I knew he was going to tease me about something I did. I could tell. I hoped I didn't do anything too embarrassing. "You came in, woke me up makin' all this noise---" 

"What else?" 

"You were calling my name. You were upstairs by the time I got out of bed. You were in the bathroom and I thought you were gonna get sick---" 

"Did I?" 

"No, but you were pretty delirious." He smiled fully there, laid the spatula on the kitchen counter, and turned around to face me. "You kept goin' on and on about some guy who walked you home..." 

I blushed and started chewing my lip. "I did?" 

Cloud laughed. "Yeah, you did." 

"Did I say his name? Did I tell you what his name was?" 

"No. But you went on and on about him like he was the greatest thing... Now I wanna meet this guy and see if he's worth all that stuff you said." 

I was still blushing a little, and sort of shifting from foot to foot as I stood there. I wasn't out of the woods yet. "Then...what did I say about him?" 

"Oh, lots of stuff. He carried you home, didn't he? In his arms..." 

I burst out laughing at the way he said that. "You're jealous," I blurted out. And that was a statement, not a question. 

His eyebrows raised, almost to his hairline. "Jealous?" 

"Yep," I said assuredly. "Why else would you want to tease me about it so much?" I walked off to get some plates and things for the bacon. I spared him a little flirty look over my shoulder, hoping he'd get the idea that I was pulling his leg. I didn't really think he was jealous. He had no reason to be. We weren't together, not in the romantic sense at least. 

His face got serious and my hopes fell. "I'm not jealous." 

Shit, I blew it. So much for joking then; I should've known he'd be touchy about that. Our feelings weren't things we liked to joke about. I had no intentions of pushing an argument-in-the-wings any further, but I didn't want to abruptly change the subject either. The silence became oppressive, but we were saved by the smell of something burning. "Cloud, the bacon!" 

He turned around. "Oh, shit." He reached for the spatula and began scraping around in the pan. "Damn it." 

We ended up picking at a meal of blackened bacon. It would probably be mean of me to say that I was glad it happened, or he and I would've been giving each other the silent treatment for the better part of the day over the jealousy issue. But I'll say it anyway: I was glad he burned the bacon. We ended up forgetting about our little would-be fight. I made eggs for the both of us a few minutes later, since Cloud said he wasn't about to touch the stove for the rest of the day. 

Then I got dressed and at noon Gigi came over. I was relieved: The thought crossed my mind that she might have forgotten. 

"You wanna go shopping afterwards?" she asked me. "Money burns holes in my pockets. Ain't good for anything unless I'm spendin' it." She grinned, and all her freckles lit up. 

I told Cloud I'd be back in about an hour or two and left with Gigi. On the way to The Cafe, we talked about Sef. He must've been the first thing on Gigi's mind when she woke up that morning. She wanted to know all about our walk home. 

"There's not much to tell," I said. "He asked me how I got here and I could've sworn he asked about Cloud, like he knew him from before or something..." 

Gigi chewed her lip, obviously not very interested. "Hmmm." I knew she was expecting something more juicy gossip-wise. "Well, maybe they met before, a long time ago." 

"I thought that might've been it, but now that I---" 

"_But_...that's not what I really want to know." She faced me, a strange expression on her face. "Did he say anything about me at all? Anything?" 

Anyone else might have found Gigi's self-centeredness to be shocking (it was that straightforward), but I was used to it. "No, he didn't say anything about you at all. He just asked stuff about me. When we got to my place, I thanked him and he left." I paused there, going over what I wanted to say next. "There's something he's hiding, Gigi. I always felt that way about him, ever since we first saw him. It's almost like he's in mourning, like he lost a family member or something..." 

"Maybe he was married and his wife died," Gigi suggested. 

Her reaction was more indifferent than I expected. I thought she was actually going to be concerned at what I told her. A part of me seized the chance and hoped she was losing interest in Sef for good, because right then, I thought I could go after him myself, find what he was hiding and cure that hurting. Yes, I was still clinging to that silly notion. 

I turned to Gigi. "You don't seem interested." I had to proceed with this cautiously. 

"What? Oh...no, I am, I'm listening..." 

"I don't mean listening to me. You don't seem concerned with Sef anymore." I was mentally crossing my fingers. I might have crossed the line there already. 

Gigi sighed and eyed her shoes. "No, actually, I'm not," she admitted, and relief flooded my mind. "I dunno. I got up this morning, and I did a lot of thinking, and I realized... What the fuck, he's not interested in me. He didn't even want to walk me home last night; he wanted to walk _you_ home. You were just nice enough to make him stop at my place first." She threw a wan smile my way. 

I was taken aback by how graciously she conceded. She was practically handing him to me on a silver platter. No fight, no abrupt end of friendship, just a gentle end to her affections. I was really impressed; I didn't even know what to say right away. "Gigi... Thanks. I mean that. Because, well, I've been doing some thinking myself, and---" 

"You like him," Gigi finished for me. She was grinning mischievously, back to her old self again. "Hmmm. Well, we'll see if I can't give you a little hand, if ya know what I mean..." 

My eyes grew wide. "Oh my God, you're... Tell me you're not going to try and hook me up with him." Was that a bad thing or a good thing? 

Gigi laughed. "I said we'll see!" She threw an arm around my shoulders. "What kind of friend would I be if I just bitched you out and never talked to you again?" 

"A really bad one," I answered with a smile. 

She jerked me towards her. "Hey, I was about to say 'don't answer that'!" 

I was beaming inside. I was on the threshold of a possible new relationship and that could've ended an old friendship but didn't. Now all I needed to do was find Cloud a new (and stable) job and things would be perfect all over again. Maybe Sef's coming into my life wasn't as bad as I initially thought. 

I felt good. I could've skipped all the way to The Cafe, if making an ass out of myself didn't matter to me. I'd taken longer than usual doing my hair today too, which probably had something to do with me expecting Sef to show up: it was half up into a loose knot. The strands of hair that fell down and framed my face were nice touches. I didn't usually bother much with my hair; clothes were more my thing. But it made me feel very pretty, to primp more than was usual or necessary before going out. 

Then there was my skin-tight black shirt that caught the attention of a couple of passersby. Really, I just wanted them to look at the hair. 

But maybe I was too happy and too proud. We got to The Cafe, and inside Gigi ran into one of the workers, whom she seemed to know. He was a redhead like her, and very tall. "You're in deep shit," he told us. 

"For what?" Gigi sneered. "What'd we do?" 

"Last night, you guys drunk a _lot_. And you didn't pay for all of it either." 

Gigi shot me an accusing look. "I thought we did! Didn't you say---" 

I grew defensive. "Oh, don't even start on me! I wasn't the only one drinking! I used up all my money on that last night!" 

"So did I!" 

"Look,"said the redheaded guy, "Weiss is probably expecting you right now, so you should get back there and face the music." 

"Fuck the music," Gigi snarled. She was about to storm off for the back when Mr. Weiss emerged from there, frowning. He saw Gigi and I and said nothing, but coaxed us towards him with a crooked finger. 

There was one word in my head at that moment: shit. 

Gigi and I followed our boss to the back, not to the break room but to the other side where he had a little office. It was there that we got...interrogated, for lack of a better term. Mr. Weiss took a seat behind his desk and Gigi and I took two of the four chairs lined up against the wall facing him. It was a nice-looking office, a little shoddy but not by much. The rug was gray and all the furniture was dark. Pictures littered the corners of the desk, probably of Mr. Weiss' wife and kids. There was a potted plant in the back corner, green freckled with yellow. My eyes were glued to it. I could feel my face turning red. Beside me, Gigi was outwardly calm. 

"Now," Mr. Weiss started, but he didn't get beyond that word. Gigi cut him off. 

"Oh, how's your wife?" she asked, and I remembered Mr. Weiss' sudden departure last night. His wife had been mugged. 

Mr. Weiss looked disconcerted---naturally---but he answered her question. "Oh, she's fine. She just got a little roughed up; nothin' serious." 

Gigi was trying to throw him off track, but I didn't think it would work. "That's good," she said in a slightly smaller voice. I could tell she was wracking her brain for more things to say, but she didn't come up with any. 

Mr. Weiss picked up right where he left off. "Now...I think you two know why you're back here." 

"For our pay?" Gigi asked meekly. 

"That's one reason. You wanna guess the other?" 

We're fired, I thought. 

No one answered, so the ball kept on rolling. "The other is that I'm upset about what happened last night." Gigi opened her mouth there, but Mr. Weiss went right on talking. "When I first came in, I saw the place was cleaned up, and everything seemed all right, and I thought, 'Oh, I did good leaving it in their hands. I should give them a little bonus or something, to show my appreciation.' Then I go over to the bar, and I'm checking things, and it didn't take me long to see that I was short about..." There he paused, looking at a note or something on his desk. "...Ten gil, more or less. A lot of liquor, and ten gil." 

I blushed. That miscalculation was my fault. 

"Tifa," Gigi started, "didn't Sef give us twelve gil?" 

"Yeah, but obviously it wasn't enough." 

Mr. Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Who's Sef?" 

Gigi gave me a look, which I took to mean that I was supposed to answer that question. I shook my head dismissively. "Sef's just a friend. We had to borrow twelve gil from him to pay what we thought we owed." 

"You were off by ten," Mr. Weiss said. "But that isn't the reason why I'm so disappointed. Ten gil's a drop in the bucket. And the booze can be refilled. But I _trusted_ the three of you---" 

"Two of us. Antoine had to leave early," Gigi said. There was a subtle sort of venom in that remark, like she was hoping to get Antoine into trouble somehow by bringing up his absence. 

"Oh yeah, that's right. I almost forgot." Mr. Weiss leaned back in his chair contemplatively, stroking his chin. "Yeah, I forgot about that. It was just the two of you..." My hopes rose a bit there, but it didn't last long. Mr. Weiss leaned forward again and resumed the lecture. "But that doesn't matter. The point is that I trusted you two to handle things for me when I couldn't be there. Instead I find out that you've both been drinking, and I know you both know better than that. Having drunk workers doesn't say much about this place." 

I swallowed hard. I'd been biting my lip hard again, hard enough to open the old wound I'd given it last night, when I'd been staring at Sef. Sef... I wished he were here now. He'd find a way of getting us out of this...wouldn't he? 

Gigi pulled another miracle for me then. "Don't fire Tifa over this," she said out of the blue. She wasn't looking Mr. Weiss in the eye. "I started it. I sorta goaded her into doing it with me. Besides, she's a good worker! Do you really wanna get rid of her for one little mistake? How many Tifas do you think you're gonna find out there?" 

"Gigi," I started, but it seemed like she didn't hear me. 

"No, I'm not gonna fire her," said Mr. Weiss. "And I'm not gonna fire you either, though let me tell you Gigi, you try me too often..." 

"Yeah, I know, I fuck up a lot." She turned to look at me there, smiling a little, that same pixyish smile that spoke bibles about her cunning nature. Mr. Weiss coughed a little there, and Gigi spoke up again. "Sorry. I _screw_ up a lot." The room slipped into silence for a moment or two before Gigi was at it again. "But your girls'd miss me if I was gone," she pointed out confidently. 

Mr. Weiss chuckled. "Yeah, whenever I bring them in, they always ask if you're gonna be there." 

"So bring them in sometime! It's been too long! And I think Tifa'd like to meet 'em." 

I smiled. Thank God for little miracles...and Gigi, who occasionally worked a few of her own. 

"Now you know this's gonna come out of both your pays," Mr. Weiss told us. "Not just the ten gil, but a little more to teach you a lesson, make sure you two think before you try something stupid in the future." He smiled there a little. 

"How much are you taking out?" Gigi asked, getting excited. 

"A little more than five apiece." Mr. Weiss winked at her. 

We got our pay and our schedules for next week and left. I knew we wouldn't be "punished" much---just ten gil out of each of our pays. That hardly mattered, considering we got paid under the table. Most people in the world today did. The only difference was that the honest people actually took out some pay for city taxes and other people didn't bother. Pays were in cash---no checks, because there was no banking system, not in a world where most cities were electricity-free. Today's bank accounts were basically money under the mattress. I couldn't imagine how many robberies and things went on in the less organized towns out there, and I didn't want to either. 

Ten gil out of my pay, and I deserved it. "We're never getting drunk on the job again," I told Gigi. 

The corner of her mouth twisted a bit. "Ahh, I'm just glad we didn't get fired." 

"Yeah. Oh, thanks for saying what you did in there." The girl could really be impressive, when the mood struck her. 

"No problem, Tif." 

We walked out, a great weight no longer on either of our shoulders. I felt as happy as I did when I left my house, maybe even happier. And I think Lady Luck was walking on my other side, opposite Gigi, because no sooner had we stepped outside than we saw Sef standing there, waiting. 

Waiting for _me_, like he said he would. 

He looked nice, all the more so now that I didn't have to worry about Gigi liking him, or trying to hit on him to no avail. Coatless, and rightfully so because it was warm out, the white shirt he wore was stretched tight over his chest and I could've busied myself for the better part of a day counting all his muscles. Nice? Did I say he looked nice? That was an understatement. 

He looked great---and nervous, like he couldn't wait to take off. I saw why he went out of his way to hide himself by now. That Sephiroth resemblance must get him a lot of crazy looks. His hair looked darker under the cloudy sky, his long bangs hanging disheveled around his face. His eyes were glowing, Mako-green. I found myself flashing back to those days long past when I saw similar eyes gloating over me, corrupt with insanity. He was pale too, but I assumed that came from spending most of his time inside, writing as he did. 

There was an awkward several-second moment of no speech whatsoever. Then I said something at the same time that he did. We stopped and laughed a little. 

"I almost forgot you'd be here," I told him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gigi watching us closely. 

"Well, I almost thought I wouldn't make it here on time to catch you." He glanced at a watch he wore, on his right wrist. Right wrist, meaning he was left-handed. "Quarter after twelve. You're a little late," he jested. His smile was so shy. I found myself reflecting it immediately. 

"We were ten gil short last night, you know." 

He looked confused for a moment. Then it must've hit him. "Really?" 

"Yeah. I feel I owe you that twelve gil. I can pay you back now, if you want---" 

"No, don't. I told you, consider it a gift." 

I had a vague feeling that I'd be smiling throughout our entire conversation. "Okay then. I thank you for it." 

His smile grew wider, more forward. "You're welcome." A pause, then, "So, when are you working next week?" 

"Oh---" I unfolded my schedule and gave it a look for the first time. "Um...Tuesday and Wednesday...oh and Sunday! Gigi! We have work on Sunday!" I looked over my shoulder at her. 

"What time on Sunday?" she asked. 

"Six 'til closing." I turned back to Sef. I was beaming again. The question was on the tip of my tongue and I was almost too nervous to ask it. Almost. "Then...you'll be dropping by on Sunday?" I must've sounded like a little girl asking for a toy at the store. 

"I might," he said, but the glint in his eyes told me that "I might" really meant "yes." Then he said something unexpected. "Your hair looks good that way." Before I had enough time to bask in the flattery, he reached out and brushed a few of the strands away from my face. His fingertips just barely touched my cheek. I forgot Gigi was even there. My knees turned to water. Then the stars plummeted and the planets tilted. 

And then I stopped blowing things out of proportion. 

I had to get a grip on myself or I'd end up embarrassed. But fortunately, he did nothing more to tempt me. His hand pulled away as quickly as it had shot out. 

"Sounds like a date to me," Gigi interjected from behind me. I was far too deep in the thick of things to bother to look at her. 

Sef raised a brow. "Date? I just want to talk to you a bit," he said, speaking to me. "I like talking with you. That and the coffee where you work." He half-smiled. 

Coffee? Coffee. For a split second I was hit with the idea of Sef and I in a giant cup of coffee, naked, me luxuriating in the feel of all those nice muscles pressed tight against me. And the things he could do with those big hands... In a really big coffee cup. I almost burst out laughing right then and there. 

"Your thoughts are elsewhere," Sef remarked. 

"Oh...oh! No, no, I was just thinking. Now I'm looking forward to Sunday." And he had no idea just how much. Suddenly Sunday became the greatest day of the week. 

He was studying me closely. God, I would've cut off my left hand to be able to read his mind right now. "Look for me around seven," he said at last. "I have something to take care of before I come here." 

We parted then with a curt change of goodbyes and see-you-on-Sundays. I was in a trance. Gigi was right; that _was_ a date, more or less. A date timed for my work hours, yes, but a date nevertheless. A convenient date. ...Where was I? Was I really standing on the sidewalk outside The Cafe? And my hair... He liked my hair. Wow. Everything normal seemed so strange and otherworldly at the moment. 

Gigi came up from behind and spun me around. She looked at me oddly, then said, "Was it just me, or could you see his nipples through his shirt?" 

We were in two different frames of mind. "I'm gonna wear my hair like this forever," I murmured. 

"Well...that's good," said Gigi appraisingly. "It does look good this way." There she started adjusting some of the loose pieces. "_Damn_, though---didn't expect him to just come out and ask you out like that." 

"He didn't really ask me out per se; he just...I don't know. It was implied, I think." I recalled my little split-second coffee fantasy and grinned a little. I couldn't believe something like that came up so fast, the moment he touched me. And Gigi's suddenly giving up on him around the same time that I was thinking about pursuing him... Were those more coincidences to add to the pile? This all seemed like it had been previously worked out---the run-in on Monday, the walk home, the idea of thinking that I could ease the hurt I felt in him...and now the idea of mating with him in a coffee cup. 

"What're you smiling at?" Gigi asked me. 

"Where do you want to go now? I'll tell you on the way." I knew she'd love to hear about it, but I'd love telling it to her much more. Mmm, coffee. "And how do you feel about coffee right now?" 


	7. 7

7

Gigi and I saw a movie that afternoon, a cheesy romance flick. It was kind of dumb, about a girl who was desperate to lose her virginity, but there was one scene that had me giggling: the girl and some guy were trying to have sex and the both of them were totally awkward. It would be cruel to say that other people's misfortunes were fun to watch, but it was just a movie, so I thought I could get away with it. I had fun that day. 

On Saturday, I watched Marlene while Barret and Cloud went out to get my birthday gifts. The party was coming up in three weeks, but even that couldn't compare with the Sunday that was rapidly approaching. 

When Sunday came, I spent hours waiting for six o'clock, when work would start. Looking back on it, it seemed stupid to have wasted all that time waiting, but I couldn't help it. You know, it was one of those times where everything seems boring up until the moment you've been waiting for. 

I had a little issue with my hair. Down as usual, or up? Sef liked it up, but I already wore it like that on Friday and doing it again might send him the message that I paid too much attention to every little thing he said. I thought for a moment about calling Gigi and asking her advice, but then decided not to. I'd feel kind of silly doing that, and besides, guys didn't really pay much attention to hair anyway. That had probably been a one-time thing. 

My verdict: up with the 'do. Sef might have liked it, but so did I, and that was my reasoning. I did it for me...mainly. 

And so I floated into work that day. I was very lost in thought. Times like that were when I thanked God for reality. Work was very busy that evening and it kept my hands full, even though it also ended up leaving me with a short fuse as far as my temper went. Customers could be so aggressive, even the polite ones, when there was so many of them to deal with in one sitting. 

Barret and Cloud dropped by around six-thirty with a very hyper Marlene, complete with a box of crayons and some drawing paper. "That's her thing now," Barret explained. "Gotta fridge door full of stuff." 

It was cute, having her there scribbling away, quiet the way she always was. Sometimes I forgot she was sitting there at the bar, surrounded by Cloud, Barret, and a few patrons who were halfway down the road to drunkenness (and fortunately seated a safe distance away from her). 

When I had a moment free from customer orders, I told Gigi in so many words that Sef was going to show up tonight. "If you see him come in, let me know." 

She smirked at me. "I'll be lucky if I see 'im. It's too crowded in here. What's our lawful occupancy? Half these people are probably against the fire code." 

Not that anyone would care if a fire started here, I thought morosely. Mentioning organized institutions usually got me a little depressed, given the world's situation. In Quintz though, I could forget and remain forgetful for a while, until something reminiscent was brought up. That was the advantage to being cut off from most major cities. 

Gigi took interest in Marlene's artwork after a time. "Aw, she's an artist," she cooed. "That's one of the few talents I don't have." She impulsively left most of the work in the hands of Antoine and I to go inspect the crayon box sitting on the bar. 

Cloud got a bit irritated at her, as per normal. "It's a crayon box, see?" he quipped. "I'll give you one just like it if you hurry with my shot." 

"Sixty-four?" said Gigi, reading the print on the box and completely ignoring him. 

"Yeah, the mother of all crayon boxes." Barret half-smiled. "It don't get any better than sixty-four." 

Marlene was still diligently coloring away. She reached for another crayon when Cloud cupped his hands around his mouth and called to Gigi, "Get back to work! If you do..." He reached over and pulled out a random crayon. "I'll give you...magenta." 

Marlene balked. "No!" She nabbed the crayon and put it back in its place. 

Gigi scoffed Cloud. "Pfft. If I wanted crayons, I'd just get me a bigger box. Like the one hundred and twenty-eight box." 

Marlene looked up from her work, interested. 

"You jus' had to get her started," Barret began, head in hand now. "I jus' bought those crayons yesterday." 

"So?" said a slightly miffed Gigi. "I'm just informing you that there's a bigger crayon box than sixty-four. One twenty-eight, it has all the colors you'll ever need...and all the colors you'd never use. Like titanium yellow. Or ass crack black." 

Marlene gasped theatrically and put her hands over her ears. Barret cut in angrily, "Hey, hey, watch your mouth." 

"And then get my shot," Cloud added. 

When I had a free moment, I got Cloud his shot, came up beside Gigi and handed it to him. "Back to work, hon," I reminded her. "And while we're still on crayons, as long as Marlene's around, it's butt crack black." 

Antoine passed us by briefly with empty disposable cups in his hands. "The hell are you talking about? I need help here." 

Gigi and I left the bar and immersed ourselves in our jobs once more. "We're talking about crayon colors," Gigi enlightened him. "Like a---butt crack black." 

"What? That's not a color," Antoine called back over his shoulder. 

"Yes it is. It's the color of your hair." Gigi lightly ruffled Antoine's hair as she passed him by, en route to making a sandwich as per a customer request. I was handling a few orders at the time, and nearly ended up laughing in the midst of one. 

That was basically work in a nutshell until seven o'clock. Sef apparently showed up right on the dot, because Gigi's words were, "Oooh, he's punctual! That's gotta be a good thing." 

I looked up and saw his big form coming in through the glass doors. We made eye contact in a heartbeat, drawn to each other almost instantly. As you could imagine, there was a part of me that shouted a warning the moment our eyes met. It was probably just lingering ill feelings from our last encounters. I bit down on it quickly and wished it away. There was no need to feel that way, I assured myself. Things were okay now. 

I went out of my way to pass by Cloud, Barret, and Marlene and mouthed exaggeratedly "he's here." Immediately Barret and Cloud's heads snapped around and skimmed over the crowd, trying to pick him out. When I was able to pass them by again, I stopped for a little bit. "Did you see him?" I whispered. 

"Who?" Marlene asked. 

I smiled, feeling silly. I was still unable to put a term to the oddity that was Sef. How about boyfriend? No, not yet, though I was pretty sure that I wanted him to be one of those. Friend? No, he wasn't quite that either. I realized then just how badly I needed to get to know him. I could tell he was hiding a lot from me, from everyone. Crush object? Yeah, that would work. So I told Marlene, "It's the guy I really really like." 

She cocked her head to one side and stopped her coloring. The green crayon she was using was still entwined in the fingers of her right hand. "Is he gonna be your boyfriend?" she inquired innocently. 

My grin turned sillier. I started blushing. "I'd like him to be," I answered after a time. 

"Don't see 'im," Barret remarked, still looking over all the seated customers. "I didn't catch 'im comin' in." 

"Me neither," said Cloud. "What's he look like? You never told me," he added pointedly, turning around to face me again. He looked suspicious, an expression that I never liked to see on him. "It's not like you to be so secretive." 

"I'm not being _secretive_," I huffed. "I just..." Oh, he was right. I had been being secretive; I just never gave it any thought. My feelings for Sef weren't something I wanted to advertise. I didn't know why, but I felt they were too deep to be exposed, at least not for a while. "You never asked---" 

"You never told. Nnot much anyway." 

"You wanna tell me where he is or what?" Barret intruded impatiently. "I'm still lookin' and I can't find 'im. It's like he's the goddamn invisible man." 

Marlene rebuked her father with the poke of a crayon. "Daddy!" 

Swearing or not, I was so glad for Barret's interference I could've thanked him right there. I scanned the heads of the people again and found Sef where he had sat the last time he visited The Cafe---far off to my right, near the window. It was so crowded in the little eatery that the table he sat at had no other chairs aside from the one he was using. The other two that should've been there had probably been moved to other tables. There were tables with ten or twelve people at them. Sef's lucid eyes cut through the commotion like a pair of green knives. Something about the way he was sitting---bent forward slightly, hands folded on the tabletop---told me that he didn't care for the crowds, and that he was itching to be rid of them. 

"He's all the way over on the right." I pointed in that direction. "Tall, with the black coat and the really light hair..." 

Silver hair. It flashed in the artificial lighting as he got to his feet, locked eyes with me again, and gestured, indicating that he wanted to see me outside. If he could, I thought. How was I going to slip out of work now? I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting Mr. Weiss to prod me into getting back to my job, which I should be doing anyway, considering how he already let me off the hook for drinking the last time. 

"That's him? Why's 'e leavin'?" Barret wondered aloud. 

Cloud hadn't turned around again. There was something funny about his expression. He remarked offhandedly, "Maybe he doesn't like crowds." 

Barret turned around now, looking confused. "Ain't that crowded in here. We saw worse in Midgar---Wall Market on Fridays. Makes this place look like a wide-open space." 

I didn't know what to think, but I knew what I wanted to do. I had to go out there and see him, even if it meant leaving only two people here to handle all the customers. I was afraid that if I didn't go out there, he'd leave and never show up again. Should that have bothered me so much? Maybe not, but I was getting attached. I couldn't help it; I did that way too easily. 

I told Gigi what I planned to do. I didn't count on getting opposition from her, but I did. 

"Dude, Tifa, ya have to know when _not_ to push it," she told me. "I just got us off getting fired already. You leave now and there isn't anything I can say. Besides, I ain't dealing with all these people with just Antoine here. You couldn't POSSIBLY want to punish me like that. After all I do for you," she started mockingly. 

Mockingly, but it still insulted me a little, all thanks to the short fuse I had due to job strain. It really figured that crowds would come when I was expecting someone. "It's not punishing," I fired back. "I'm worried if I don't go out there, he's gonna take off---" 

"And if you _do_ go out there, you lose your job." 

"Not necessarily. Look, I won't be gone long. Just a few minutes! I'll tell him this was a bad time and see if I can arrange some other meeting, or something..." 

"Ugh, Tifa, just ask the guy out, for Christ's sake! This beating-around-the-bush thing gets tiring real fast. You'll lose him that way anyway if you keep that up. So just get to the point!" She fixed me with her usual mischievous stare. "If you make it really, really, _really_ quick, I just might be able to cover for you." 

I bit my lip and started getting shy. I never liked to do the asking out part; that was the guy's line as far as I was concerned. I felt more comfortable being approached. I couldn't help it if Sef and I picked a bad time for this, but doing nothing about it would only make it worse. "You should tell Mr. Weiss to call in some of the other workers," I advised Gigi. "The three of us can't really handle all this." 

"Oh, he's making calls now. Antoine tipped him off about that. See, he occasionally does a few smart things. Now get out there damn it, before I change my mind about covering you!" She gave me a little push forward. 

I took things from there, though I had to backtrack for a moment to drop off the dishcloth I had in hand. When I got outside, I found out that it was pouring. Sef was still there, lingering against the building, clad in his usual long black coat and hat. His eyes had been staring out into the street, apparently in thought. I didn't get a chance to wonder what he was thinking about, because that was when he turned to me. 

"I'm sorry," he started, a bit uncomfortably. Apologies didn't seem to be his thing. He seemed jumpy about them. "I don't like crowds very much. I usually try to avoid them." 

Hey, Cloud had been right about that! "I can see what you mean," I said feebly, throwing a glance back at The Cafe's glass doors. "I think this was a really bad time. I can't stay out here very long, I'm so busy. But I didn't want to just leave you out here. Someone's covering for me, but only for a few minutes..." 

"Tifa." 

Damn it, I was rambling. I'd been a bit shy during our previous meeting, but now I was just acting silly. I hated being rushed. There was pressure to make things right here, pressure to go back to work, pressure to avoid getting fired at work because of pressure to make things right here... When I get home, I told myself, I'm making a cup of tea and locking myself in my room so I can bang my head against the wall. Then maybe everything would sort itself out. 

Sef's eyes were unusually clear, very piercing. But at the same time, they told me he was uneasy. Was it with me, now that he was away from the crowds? There always seemed to be a deeper level to him, and just when I thought I was going to be able to travel far enough to see it, I'd get a wakeup call and find myself just scratching at the surface. It frustrated me at the same time that it made me curious. 

"I understand you're going out of your way, but there's something you should know...before anything goes any further." His eyes looked away momentarily, then came back to me. Their power cut right through me; I was pinned there to that spot on the pavement, getting soaked in the rain but not caring one bit about it. "There's a lot you don't seem to know. And there's a lot I'm still confused about." He paused there, taking his chin into his hand. The shadow from his hat cast his features into darkness, making his eyes all the spookier. I was tempted to go on a mental tangent about how sexy that made him look, but now wasn't the time. 

So I kicked that thought to the back of my head. For later. "What are you confused about?" 

"Well, for one thing...you." 

My eyes popped out of my head. Cue bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Me?" 

"Generally speaking." He paused, then realized that doing that was awkward and went on to explain himself. "I came here because I really wanted to see you, but I can't figure out why..." He stopped and raised an eyebrow at me. "You must think I sound stupid." 

Could you turn around and pick me up? Yeah, because you left me a few sentences back. "What? No, no, it's not that. I just..." Was lost. He did it again---he let me get so far and then showed me how much farther I still had to go in understanding him. I felt like someone blindfolded me and sent me out into the street, leaving me to grope my way across. 

_The first obstacle._ Those three words were in my mind when I stepped closer to him. All those little musings about helping him, about finding out what he had to hide and making it better, just rushed to the front of my mind. If I kept telling myself I couldn't go as deep as he'd let me, then I'd lose him. And I didn't know what he was to become to me, not yet anyway, so I was taking great precautions to keep him close. 

He smiled at me then, wanly, as I drew closer. "You have your hair up again." 

I chuckled. Men, they never knew how much thinking and debating and agonizing went into that process. "You said you liked it." Even though I swore I did it for myself, but what did it matter at that point? The answer kind of fell out of my mouth. 

"And I do." And he started adjusting it again. I didn't tell him, but there was something really nice about his touch this time. Nothing overly shocking, just a pleasantness that made me very comfortable. I was at ease; I forgot about everything then as it melted away into oblivion. There was the rain, his fingers, and me. That was it. 

But then he broke the moment and pulled away. "I have to apologize. I'm not very good with other people." He frowned there. 

I gave him a smile as reassurance. "Don't worry about that. You're just shy. I'm that way too." 

"Oh? I would've never thought. You don't seem that way at all." 

"Well, when I have to be forward, I do it. Sometimes people have to break out of their shells." 

Sef turned pensive at that remark; I could read it in his eyes. "Perhaps," he agreed with me after a time, but the tone of his answer was moot. "Well, I don't want to keep you out here any longer. You're getting soaked---" 

"So are you," I pointed out, poking at his chest. Kind of a bold move if you thought about it, since there was an underlying feeling of wariness around him. He sounded naive now, but that was apparently reserved for relationships. He obviously had no experience in that department. 

He'll learn from me, I decided. I made my commitment there. Yes, I was going to go after this, after him. 

His eyes caught my finger when I poked at him. Was he amused? He never commented on it. "When can I meet you here next? When it's hopefully not crowded," he added as an afterthought, glancing distastefully at the interior of The Cafe through the windows. 

"Come here on Tuesday morning. The earlier, the better. It shouldn't be crowded then. I hope not, anyway." 

He nodded acceptingly. "All right. Until then." And he said that very smoothly. Ugh, me without a little tape recorder to play that back over and over again to my utter delight. He made to leave. 

I stopped him. "Wait! Don't leave like that!" I ran up to him and turned him around. "We're not business partners or total strangers---it's okay if you hug me before you go." 

His eyes grew large. "It is?" 

I nodded assuredly. "Yep. I'm a very huggy person, so you don't need to be shy about that." It had to start somewhere---the contact, that is. And what better way to start than with a simple little hug? Heck, even my friends got those when I was in the mood. 

There was another clumsy pause before we ended up in each other's arms in a flash. It happened so fast: one minute I was cold and wet and anxious, the next I was surrounded by him, drowning in great arms concealed under that black coat. It was a funny thing---I never thought about how strong he was until I was this close to him. Oh, sure, I could tell from a mile away that I was just a little scrap of nothing much compared to him, and I was no fragile china doll myself, but studying from a distance was different from actually feeling a person. It brought back all those memories of Thursday night when he carried me home. 

I'd never forget that, no, not ever. 

He smelled nice, of some faint cologne that I couldn't put a name to, combined with something earthy and masculine. It wasn't overpowering; it was as subtle as his nature. When we pulled apart I found myself longing for another chance to steep myself in it. We smiled at each other. 

"You have a lot to learn," I told him teasingly. 

His response was one I didn't expect. "So do you, but if we're both lucky, I'll never have to tell you." He was all grace then, for the moment: he leaned forward and gave me a fleeting peck on the forehead, then tipped his hat, said, "I'll see you on Tuesday," and turned and left. 

Wow. Er, well, at least I got him to overcome his shyness...a little. 

But what did he mean? If we were both lucky, he'd never have to tell me? Human nature being human nature, I was dying to know what he was talking about. At the same time, however, I got that creepy feeling again, the one that I was sure had left me a while back. 

What did I just commit myself to? 

I felt robotic as I turned and headed back inside The Cafe. It was almost like a reflex---Sef was gone, must go back inside. I weaved my way around the crowded tables and back to the bar, where everyone was waiting for me. Antoine and Gigi were busy of course, so I went to Cloud, Barret, and Marlene first. 

Marlene wasn't interested in coloring anymore. "What happened, what happened?" 

I opened my mouth to answer, but Cloud cut me off when he made a little kissing noise. Barret shot him a corner-of-the-eye glance and chuckled that deep, rumbling chuckle of his. 

Marlene looked from Cloud to Barret to me, saucer-eyed and confused. 

"Am I right?" Cloud asked. There was humor in his voice, but it was pretty much absent from his eyes. I didn't answer him right away, because I was too busy trying to figure out what he was thinking. 

"Oh, well---no, not exactly. Just a little peck." 

"S'gotta be more than that. You was out there for a while," Barret leered at me. 

"What're you talking about?" Marlene asked. 

"Oh, nothing," I answered as innocently as I could, when Antoine passing me by with two plates of something for some customers. He leaned over and made kissy noises at me. 

I groaned. "Oh, quit it." 

"'Oh' nothing. I saw you out there," he informed me. He sounded accusing, but in a playful way. I watched him hand the customers their food. "Oh, and Trish and Jessi should be showing up soon. Weiss called them in." 

Commence the gossip wagon, I thought. I put myself back to work, washing the dishes. I noticed then that I always got stuck doing the dishes, usually, but I had too much on my mind to devote further thought to that. I should be happy, but I couldn't get Sef's words out of my head. What wasn't he telling me? 

Gigi sidled up to me then. "Finally working again, are you?" she teased. "You heard Jessi and Trish are comin', right?" 

I nodded. 

"So...what happened out there? I tried to spy on you, but I was too busy." 

I had my hands in dishwater then. I didn't bother to take them out; I just stopped what I was doing. "Well...for starters, he's shier than I ever thought was possible---in a relationship, I mean." 

Gigi knitted her brows. "What'd he do?" 

"He said some things that have me thinking. He said he felt confused about me, like he didn't understand what was happening between us. He sounded like he was trying to solve a puzzle or something, like, really thinking it over deeply. It was weird." 

"Well, he was always a little weird. But at least he's hot," Gigi assured me, grinning suggestively. "Can't go wrong what that. Hey, wait, he's a writer, isn't he? They're weird...aren't they? Or am I thinking of some other job where people are all weird? Ahh, throw me a bone here, Tif. I'm all confused." 

She patted me on the back hard and left me to my work. I started picking up a shot glass and scrubbing at it absently. I was all confused too; I could empathize. What _was_ I getting myself into? I could only hope it would end up giving me more blessings than burdens down the road. 

I could only hope that, because I had a vague feeling that there was no turning back now. 


	8. 8

8

Barret could recognize an ex-ShinRa employee a mile away, but he seemed completely oblivious to a Sephiroth look-alike. Cloud, on the other hand, was almost exactly the opposite, and with good reason. 

It was twelve-thirty now. Work had ended a half an hour ago and I was back home, sitting on the sofa in my pajamas and reading one of the out-of-town newspapers that Quintz occasionally sold. I didn't want to just sit there, lost in my thoughts, weighed down like the whole world had just taken a seat on my shoulders. Good news was a rare thing to read in this day and age, but it was simply the act of reading that I hoped would take my mind off things. 

I was starting to realize things that I didn't want to realize. At the time I blamed it on me thinking too much, but really, I was giving it no more thought than any other person in my situation would. 

Cloud was in the kitchen making tea. Usually by now he was asleep, but after getting a glance at Sef he seemed edgy, disturbed. Why tea? Well, I always thought Cid got us addicted to the stuff. We'd all be drinking tea until we were old and gray. And then we'd pass it on to our grandchildren... 

Silly thought. I stopped myself before it got too far along. I had more important stuff to remind myself of...like how dead people didn't just up and come back to life. That was storybook material. 

Now that I was looking back on it though, I saw that I really did give that kind of thing thought before. It was only one time, and very brief. Way back during our pursuit of Sephiroth, in Cosmo Canyon, Bugenhagen showed us an interesting little demonstration of Lifestream and what he called spirit energy. I remembered the little figure of a human being disappearing, blending into a great stream, and then appearing in a totally different location on the holographic image of a planet. 

I never thought about that stuff very often. I wasn't given to philosophical thoughts like that. They usually got me itching to change the subject. It must drive people crazy to think of such far-out concepts like that all the time. People should live in the here-and-now; that was much healthier. Right? 

But what if Sephiroth's so-called spirit energy did the same thing that Bugenhagen's model showed? What if he died and was born again somewhere else? Somewhere else like here. Could that happen? 

Was I falling for someone I hated so much? God, the idea of being attracted to the man who messed up my life so badly was sickening. I would never let that happen. 

Yet at the same time, I didn't want to let Sef go. I didn't want to shut him out of my life simply because I was sitting here late at night thinking more than I should. I could be wrong, I assured myself. Bugenhagen's model was just that---a model, a demonstration, an example. Nothing more. I couldn't go around applying that little scene to every situation in my life. And besides, that feeling of helping him, of healing him where he was hurting, had yet to leave me. I was starting to cling to that idea. 

As if I had to be depressed and worried even further, I was pulled from my thoughts by an article in the paper about declining school attendance. It was one of the smaller headlines in the middle of all sorts of other news, mostly of the social kind. The writer of the article had asked a young guy, sixteen years old, "So you don't bother to get up early anymore?" 

His response echoed all the negativity that a post-apocalyptic world was forcing on him. "Nah, why should I? No one else goes. It's pointless. The whole world's going to hell anyway." 

I frowned. Yep, in about fifty years or so I could see humanity as this uneducated barbarian race, who, given a few more centuries, would wipe themselves out due to the things that always prevailed---greed, petty hatred, and vengeance. Ah, I should be less pessimistic, shouldn't I? But look at everything I had to deal with now. It was hard to think good thoughts, and society _was_ an animated corpse at this point, more or less. It was only a matter of time before it would finally be put to rest. 

Would I be alive to see that? 

Cloud came trudging in with a cup of tea in hand. I lowered the newspaper and took notice. "You didn't pour me any?" 

"Pour it yourself," he grumbled. 

Oh, right, he was in a funny mood. Almost forgot. He took a seat on the sofa beside me, but not at all close, keeping his distance. I knew him well enough---he didn't want to be touched or questioned right now. 

We sat in silence. I got back to my paper, absently chewing on my lip, and he was sipping his tea. I could feel the tension mounting between us, the "who's gonna kill who first" kind. I hated it. 

I went from chewing my lip to biting on one of my nails. It seemed like all this would never end. I was about to give serious thought to screaming my lungs out when Cloud finally spoke to me. "I was thinking," he started. "I got hit with the weirdest thought..." 

I turned to look at him. He wasn't looking at me, or at anything in particular; he was just staring straight ahead. I spoke. "About what?" 

He shifted a bit in his spot, something he always did when he was uncomfortable. There was a moment's worth of hesitation before he answered. "No, forget about it. It's stupid. I shouldn't even be thinking stuff like that." 

No, he didn't answer directly, but I knew what he was implying. I knew what he came close to saying and surprisingly it didn't bother me much to not hear it from him. Sef's an awful lot like Sephiroth, isn't he, I thought. Yes, you can see it too, can't you, Cloud? You feel it, and I'm starting to see it myself. 

So then, why couldn't I believe it? Cosmo Canyon preaching and paranormal thoughts aside, was it really that scary to accept? 

Yes, yes it was. 

I hated Sephiroth, but I didn't hate Sef. If anything, the guy was quickly becoming a potential boyfriend. That had to mean something. If Sephiroth and Sef were the same person, wouldn't I have hated Sef right off the bat? 

But all those strange feelings I had, all those weird ones that made me sick and had my head swimming... They had to mean something, too. 

I rose from the sofa and began to head upstairs. I turned around when I reached the foot of the steps. I told Cloud, "I'm going to bed now. I'm really tired. Don't stay up too late, okay?" 

His response: that aimless stare that wasn't really staring at anything, the one that basically told me that too much mental activity was going on for him to pay attention. 

I turned and climbed the stairs up to my room. Once there, I turned out the lights and got into bed, falling asleep with fear and worry as my company, and unsettling darkness as my lullaby. 

I had a dream that night that I'd end up wanting to forget. 

In it things were dark all around, very dark, and I had no idea where I was. I was coming out of the darkness and right ahead of me was a circle of gray floor, maybe a rug or something. I couldn't tell. There wasn't any light from above or anything, so I didn't know how that spot escaped the darkness, but it did, somehow. In the center of the gray floor was a little girl with long dark hair. She was sitting, hunched over something. 

Her shoulders heaved and I could hear sobbing. Almost instantly my heart broke into pieces. I had to help her, whoever she was. That was all I could think about. I had to protect her. She needed me. 

I ran over to her. I opened my mouth to call her name, but that was when I realized that I didn't know it. All I knew was that she was crying and I had to make her feel better. Just the sight of her was tearing me up inside. 

I reached her and knelt down by her side. "Don't cry, don't cry," I told her. For one reason or another, I was nervous. I put a hand on her back for comfort. "Don't cry," I said again. 

The little girl raised her head and looked up at me. My heart skipped a beat. I saw myself in her fathomless little eyes. She was more than just a little girl. "Fix it!" she whined. "Fix it pleeeeeease!" 

"Fix what?" I asked her. 

"My doll's broken! Fix it!" She pointed to something on the gray floor that I hadn't noticed before: a broken doll, all in pieces, in a pile at her feet. That sight stung me too. 

"Fix it!" the little girl whined again, more insistent this time. 

I felt my eyes go wet then. I felt so terrible at that moment. This poor thing, crying over a broken toy. I had to do something. I had to fix it...but I didn't know how. I didn't even know where to begin. It was really smashed up. 

"I'm sorry," I said, and my voice cracked as I spoke. "I don't know how... I can't fix it, I---" 

The little girl shifted away from me, almost like I'd just slapped her in the face. She gave me such an awful look, a look that had me feeling ten times guiltier than I already did. Then she turned away and bawled all over again. She was really loud, and it was killing me. I was helpless. I couldn't do anything for her and it was torturing me. 

Then I realized something. "Wait! I can buy you a new one!" I offered. 

"No!" the little girl protested. "I don't WANT a new one! I want this one fixed!" Then she went back to that terrible crying. 

I opened my mouth to say something else---I wasn't really sure what I was going to say---until a voice from somewhere intervened. 

_"Peace,"_ it said. I looked this way and that, all over, trying to find who was speaking, but I couldn't. It continued. _"Sometimes what's old and broken shouldn't be fixed."_

I could've sworn that the voice was coming from the darkness ahead of the little girl and I, but I still wasn't too sure. Either way, it was a nice-sounding voice, light, pleasant. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman's voice, though. 

But as nice as it sounded, something about it put me on the defensive. It sounded to me like the speaker was out to hurt the little girl, or to keep her suffering, or something like that. What really drilled that idea into my head was the sight of the little girl getting angry and even more upset at those words. 

"You shut up!" she said through her tears. "You shut up!" 

_"Crying won't fix things. Crying will only make parting with it worse. Stop your crying."_

The voice didn't sound so patronizing that time. That was the last straw for me; now I had to stick up for the girl. She was all alone; she needed me. 

"You shut up!" I cried to the voice, wherever it was. I sounded just like the little girl, I thought, but I kept on going. "You shut up and leave her alone!" I felt a single tear crawl down my face then, but I didn't care. 

_"Don't defend her,"_ the voice warned me. 

"Don't tell me what to do! You leave her alone, you hear me?" I shouted back. Then suddenly, I was hit with the thought of lashing out---as in actually attacking whoever this was. Before I could give it any more thought, I reached into the pockets of my pajama pants. I forgot what I came up with, but it was fairly big and hard. I pitched it ahead of me, where I thought the speaker was. 

Did it hit the voice? I couldn't be certain. There was no sound, no cry of pain. Nothing. I was afraid then, afraid that something would happen, that something would come to punish me for doing what I did. 

The little girl stopped her howling and turned to me again. She said, "Fix it! Fix it for me!" This time though, she was smiling. She looked hopeful, like my attack on the voice gave her reason to think that I suddenly could fix her doll. "Please? Fix it for me!" 

The voice hadn't left us. _"Don't fix it,"_ it told me. _"It's old and broken. It must be thrown away."_

"Don't listen to him!" said the little girl desperately. "Don't listen to him!" 

But I started to listen...and think. _Sometimes, what's old and broken shouldn't be fixed._ My eyes fell on the doll. It'd been busted up pretty badly; it probably _was_ beyond fixing. But the little girl couldn't possibly understand; she was too young. All she knew was that her doll was broken and that obviously she loved it very much and didn't want to leave it. That voice shouldn't be so harsh, no matter how wise it was. 

The girl must've seen my expression falter, because her whole attitude changed then. "Don't you listen to him!" she hissed. "If you do..." 

Was she threatening me? 

Before she could finish what she was saying, the voice interrupted her. _"Leave it! You have no more need of it, but you're too selfish to see that! Leave it!"_

"NO!" the little girl countered. She got to her feet and stamped her right foot. "No, no, NO!" 

Suddenly she didn't seem so heart wrenching to me anymore. She seemed bad. The roles had changed; now the voice seemed like the good side. It was the side that made sense anyway. 

As if she could hear my thoughts, the little girl faced me again. My eyes grew wide. Her tears were dark now, dark red. Blood. It was the ugliest sight I ever saw: her innocent face was swollen, streaked with scarlet, her eyes just as red. And burning. They burned into me as they looked at me. 

"Don't you LISTEN!" she cried. Her voice was deep now, and it terrified me. "Don't you LISTEN to him! Don't you leave me!" 

She had me pinned to the spot I was standing at with those fiery eyes. And the sound of her voice... I was paralyzed. I tried to scream, but it came out as a whisper. I tried to tell her to stop, but the same thing happened. 

Then I started crying. I was afraid of her. No one would come for me either; I was all alone here, all alone with this creepy little brat. I reached up to wipe my tears away. When my hands left my face, I noticed something dark on them. 

Blood. 

I looked back at the little girl, and everything hit me then. 

_"Go,"_ said the voice. Was it talking to me? 

The little girl took a step closer to me. She started taunting me. "Daddy, daddy! Don't leave me!" she said mockingly. Her face, once so pretty, was twisted now, disfigured, ugly, marred with lines of blood. 

_"Go!"_ the voice said again, desperately. But I couldn't; I was still paralyzed. 

"Daddy, daddy!" the little girl continued. "Did Sephiroth do this to you?" 

"_What?_" I managed to whisper. Those words cut through me like a knife. I crumpled. I hit the floor, on my knees, and buried my face in my hands. Why did she say such an awful thing? Why did she have to remind me of _that_? Suddenly I missed my father more than anything in the world. I wanted to die. 

_"Say no more!"_ the voice cried out. _"Leave now!"_

The little girl turned on the voice. "I will NOT leave! Tifa doesn't WANT me to leave!" She turned back to me, the ugly little thing, like she was waiting for me to give my approval. 

I didn't give it to her. I lifted my head and said very softly, "No. I _do_ want you to leave." 

The ugly little girl looked shocked. Then she sneered at me. "I hate you!" she spat. "I HATE YOU!" 

Then the voice spoke up again. _"Flee, Tifa."_ It spoke calmly this time. 

The little girl wailed, covering her ears with her hands. "No! DON'T LEAVE ME!" 

_"Go now!"_ the voice urged me. 

The little girl started sobbing again. She fell to her knees like I had done, her face in her hands. Her crying was quiet, kind of like the way it was before. I got curious. I got to my feet and took a step toward her. 

She looked over at me. Her face was normal again; her tears weren't bloody. She looked pretty again. "Don't leave me," she repeated. Her voice was just like a little girl's should be. It started to make me feel sad and sympathetic again. I took another step toward her, uncertain as I was. 

_"NO!"_ said the voice, and I backed away. _"Leave! Leave now!"_

The little girl got to her feet again, and again her eyes began to glow. "I HATE YOU!" she said, facing the direction that I always thought the voice had been coming from. "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! _I HATE YOU!_" 

I was already running as fast as my feet could move. For some reason, I felt like I wasn't running fast enough. It was almost like the air around me had turned into water. I felt like I was running in slow motion. 

The little girl was still screaming. "I HATE YOU!" 

And the voice was still insisting that I run. I obeyed, pushing further into blackness. 

I awoke to sunshine. Rainy April was slowly giving way to May. I was tossing and turning amongst my bed sheets, eyes still closed, my heart pounding. 

I didn't want to wake up. I knew the nightmare wasn't real---it didn't quite feel real to me---but I was still afraid that there would be blood on my pillow and two burning eyes waiting for me to rise. I hadn't had a dream that graphic since the days right after Meteor. A lot of things I thought I no longer got I was getting again. History was repeating itself. 

Repetition was essential to learning, I heard somewhere. 

Eventually I got...gutsy, you could say, and resigned myself to opening my eyes. I guess I didn't have to mention how happy I was to see my room in all its normalcy staring back at me. No freaky little girls, no bizarre, genderless voices echoing from the far and yonder. No broken dolls, no urge to run away. 

I glanced at my bedside clock automatically. Eight twenty-two. This was earlier than my usual rising time on a workless day like this Monday, yet I had no urge to go back to sleep. For all I knew, another weird dream could be waiting for me. 

I untangled myself from the bed sheets and sat up, swinging my legs over and off the side of the bed. Maybe it was the lack of rain that made me feel cheerier. I had yet to shake the weird feeling of the dream, but I was certain that if I did something to get my mind off it, by noon, it would be simply an unpleasant memory. 

Another to add to the pile, right? 

I left my bed and headed for my window, throwing it wide open. The air in Quintz was always so nice. It was a little warm out but nothing too oppressive. Just standing there and admiring the scenery made me feel relaxed. I wanted to do something with myself at the moment, something that would get the remains of those icky feelings of yesterday out of me. I wanted to go running. 

Ha, I hadn't done that in a while. Come to think of it, I hadn't done anything in a while to keep myself in my old shape. I was getting soft and that bothered me a little. Zangan wouldn't be pleased, I chided myself. 

I went to get dressed then, in a pair of tiny little running shorts---blue, with white stripes down the sides---and a white sports bra. I gave some thought to wearing a tank top, but then I reminded myself: I was going running; the last thing I needed to be was bouncing all over. And besides, I wasn't going out to attract any attention. 

That made me think about a time not too long after Meteor, when Cloud, Barret, Marlene, and I were little more than nomads, just wandering the world. We were in Costa del Sol and I was jogging on the beach. There was this nice-looking guy in the water swimming---backstroke if I remembered right---and he caught my eye. He winked at me; I smiled back at him shyly. He wasn't all dramatic about it; his tongue wasn't hitting the ground---er, the water---so I was really complemented. 

But he wasn't looking where he was going, only at me. He ended up ramming headfirst into another swimmer, a woman no less. She got up out of the water and started cursing a blue streak. I felt terrible, but I snickered as I jogged away. 

I was smiling now. God, I didn't count on doing that so fast. 

I got my hair up into a ponytail and jammed my feet into an old pair of sneakers, and then it was down the steps. I almost rushed out the door without taking my keys...and without checking to see if Cloud was awake or not. 

Thankfully he hadn't fallen asleep on the sofa, or I would've felt guilty. He must be up in his room. I toyed with the idea of knocking and making sure he was okay before I left, but then I figured he wouldn't be up for a while yet. I could get away with a quick run, and he might still be in a mood anyway. I told myself that I'd only be gone for ten minutes, and when I got back maybe I'd make him some breakfast, something to cheer him up. 

Keys in pocket, I left the house. I started my run by going north, in the direction that led to the city of Reine. Reine, where Sef made his home. One day I'd go there and see him, I told myself. Soon. 

As I jogged, my spirits lifted. The pavements weren't all dark and ugly from rain and everything sparkled with sunshine. The whole world seemed to be greeting it. Quintz hadn't seen a truly sunny day in a while. 

Maybe it was the nice weather, or maybe it was my own optimism. I couldn't tell, but one of those things served to make me forget about my troubles for a little bit. Again I fell back into denial. Again I was content to leave Sef and Sephiroth as separate people. Any advances I made in realizing the truth, I had pushed back and forgotten. 

Because I wanted to forget them. The little girl was still clinging to the broken doll, to a painful past that was just too comforting to abandon. 


	9. 9

9

What should I call this part now, irony? Hmmm. Well, best not to get too far ahead of myself. 

After jogging north for a while, I eventually made a u-turn, crossing the street and heading south on the other side. The light of the rising sun was blocked out by rows of buildings, mainly apartments. 

I thought of Barret and Marlene as I passed them by, and that in turn got me thinking about my upcoming birthday party. April had passed in a flash; it was almost hard for me to believe that it'd be May soon. I'd finally see everyone again in one place. 

All except for Vincent. Back in February, when Cloud and I were writing invitations, I remember him coming up in our conversation. "I want him to be there," I told Cloud. "We fought together. I'm sure he didn't forget about that." Never mind the fact that he disappeared after we landed the _Highwind_. 

Cloud shrugged noncommittally, the way he usually did when there were no easy answers. "Be kinda hard to forget about what we've been through, right? And he did come back to us. He didn't have to, but he did, just like everyone else." 

In other words, when Cloud had sent everyone off the _Highwind_ on that long-ago day to find their reasons for fighting, Vincent had returned along with everybody who had joined our cause. He had a reason for being with us, for fighting at our side. He came off as being cold, but I knew he wasn't really like that. I remember when we first found him in the ShinRa Mansion. He scared me at first---and with good reason, considering he was just lying there in a coffin---but when he spoke about Lucrecia, there was such warmth in his voice. It was really nice. That was how I knew he ran deeper than he seemed...or wanted to seem. 

"But we don't know where he is," Cloud continued. "He could be anywhere for all we know." 

"What about Nibelheim? ---The ShinRa Mansion! Maybe he went back there," I offered. 

Cloud raised his eyebrows. "You got the ShinRa Mansion's mailing address? Besides, if you ask me, after being locked up in that basement for so long, after getting a taste of freedom, I don't know why he'd want to go back. You know what I mean?" 

And so ended any chance of Vincent coming to the party. Still, I clung to the hope that somehow he'd find us and make a little appearance for old times' sake. 

By now I'd grown tired of jogging. The back of my neck was sweaty and my leg muscles wouldn't be able to run another inch, so I cut them a break and started walking. Before I went back home, I decided to make a quick stop at the newspaper stand in Downtown to pick up some reading material. That would turn out to be a very fortunate decision for me, something that would clear up a few things I had placed somewhere in the back of my mind. 

I was down there in ten minutes, more or less. It was still early so the streets were peaceful and quiet. Against my face the morning air felt unusually cool, thanks to my run. I must've looked so flushed. 

There at the stand was Sef, getting something for himself, a magazine by the looks of it. Now how was I supposed to react? Last night's dream came dashing towards the front of my brain, this whole big wave of unwanted thoughts and creepy feelings. That should have made me afraid of him, shouldn't it? 

It didn't. If anything, looking at Sef made me feel better, less afraid. I had no idea why. 

Before I could make up my mind on whether I should try to slip away unseen or rush up to meet him, he caught my eye. He smiled, just a little bit, those perfect lips quirking up ever so slightly. More than anything else, he looked innocent at that moment. 

I was magnetized, drawn to him by something I couldn't quite grasp, something that was eluding my understanding. All I knew then was that I felt sure of myself. I should go to him. 

We met each other halfway. 

"I..." 

"You're..." 

We'd started speaking at the same time, and then we stopped, laughing at ourselves. I opened my mouth again, but Sef beat me to the draw. 

"I didn't expect to see you here so early." 

I smiled wanly. "That makes two of us. I didn't expect to get up so early either, but I couldn't sleep so I went for a run..." I stopped, feeling a little silly. "I must look terrible now." 

Sef studied me presently. "Not really," he said at last. "You could look worse." 

I opened my mouth there, at first a little insulted, but then when I got a good look at his expression my anger faded. He was teasing me: his face was lost somewhere between no-nonsense and utter irony, the kind of matter-of-fact humor that a firmly grounded realist would have. I kind of expected him to have that kind of sense of humor, what with him being a writer and all. 

At that thought his new magazine caught my attention. "There an article in there you wrote? I remember that night when you showed me and Gigi something you did for a newspaper," I added, for clarification. 

He didn't bat an eye, only smiled a little bit. "Yes," he admitted. "There's a certain sort of pride I get when I see my work in print. Sometimes I read over it again and I wonder what motivated me to write the way I did." 

"Can I see it?" I asked him. 

"If you want." He passed the magazine to me, adding, "Page eleven." 

I went to open it, but not before stealing a glance at its name. _Cosmo Monthly_. That sounded a bit familiar, I thought. I could've sworn I saw an earlier issue of that magazine long ago, back in the canyon town that was obviously its namesake. It was in one of the elders' quarters there. I forgot which elder though, since it'd been almost two years and there were so many elders at that place. 

I flipped through the pages until I came to the eleventh one. The article was called "What Went Out With Mako" and beneath those big bold letters was Sef's name, in quotations. For this magazine article, he was listed as a guest columnist. 

I was hit with a fragment of a memory, something that might have been a lot less fuzzy had I not been drunk at the time: Gigi had questioned Sef on why his name had been in quotations in the newspaper. Sef told her that it was the only name he'd given the paper's editors. It was a disguise, a nom de plume maybe, something he was hiding behind. 

A crop of unwanted thoughts bloomed at the back of my mind; I mentally stamped them out. I started skimming the article with my eyes, wishing I could sit down someplace. I liked to relax whenever I was reading something. 

Sef either read my mind or was a very good guesser. Either way, his suggestion at that moment was so convenient. "You may want to sit for that one; it's a long article." 

I raised my head and looked around. Downtown Quintz being as crowded as it was, there was no available place for me to sit. 

"This way." 

I turned and saw Sef pointing in the direction of the newspaper stand. It dawned on me then, where he meant to take me---there was a little spot on the outskirts of this city, a wild meadow that eventually gave way to the thick forest that made up most of the landscape of this part of the world near Gongaga. It was on the roadside and there were the remnants of what looked like an old bus stop there, a few benches and a pole bearing a half-torn sign. I hadn't been down that far many times, but it'd been on Gigi's town tour long ago when I first came here. That was how I knew about it. 

I walked by Sef's side the whole time. I had his magazine in hand, folded open to the page with his article, occasionally shooting it a curious glance every so often. We were mostly quiet, but for once it wasn't awkward or unwanted. It was pleasant. 

I could hardly believe how relaxed I was at the time. It was as if every bit of worry I carried had been wrung out of me like a sponge. Yeah, I thought about last night's dream, but even that couldn't make me feel terrible. Something about those moments made it shrivel. It was no longer this huge, hulking monster now, but a tiny little thing, like an annoying dog that kept biting at your ankles because it couldn't do much of anything else. I felt like I could kick it and send it soaring into the woods far ahead, where the street wound up and vanished into the shadows it cast. So long, nightmare. You were a pain in the ass while you lasted. 

We got to the benches and took a seat. Sef ended up on my right. He was watching me with a sort of detached fascination while I read his work. He was polite enough not to bother me with questions while I was reading, which I was grateful for. 

Lots of things stood out in the article (which spanned two-and-a-half pages), but one part in particular caught my eye: 

_"It had been argued for the longest time what Mako truly was, though the researchers at Cosmo Canyon seemed to know more about this long before any other city on the Planet. They believed that Mako, Lifestream, was not only the lifeblood of the Planet, but also its consciousness, a physical stream that was really the collective body of an endless number of individuals long passed: a river of souls. _

"Many have said that if ShinRa continued its usage of Lifestream, manufacturing it into Mako energy, then the Planet would die. But what most people didn't think was that all the Mako that had been used, that immeasurable amount, had already caused death to a number of consciousnesses too high to count. Entire spirits, formerly actual, living people, had been completely unmade. What had once been human beings had met with the purest form of destruction: complete and utter obliteration." 

What went out with Mako... I looked up, away from the glossy magazine pages, feeling like I'd just ripped myself out of a trench on the ocean floor. My head was swimming with a thousand questions, every single one of them as pressing as the next. I only asked Sef one, however, without giving him so much as a brief glance. "Have you ever been to Cosmo Canyon?" 

He shifted a little. "No." 

"You should go there. I think you'd like it there." 

What were my other questions? Well, they weren't really questions per se. They were taunts, in a sense. I was tempted to ask if Sef had ever worked for ShinRa, but that was obvious: his Mako eyes gave his former SOLDIER status away. I was tempted to ask if he had ever been a scientist or some kind of researcher in Midgar or some other place, given his down-to-earth approach, but that already had an answer too. If he had been in SOLDIER, he couldn't possibly have worked in any other field. He didn't look old enough to have retired from an army, which would've been necessary if he really had gone on to pursue a different career. 

I was also curious about his use of the word "consciousness" in his article. I heard it used before by Bugenhagen...and also by Aeris. 

Sef didn't respond to my suggestion. I stopped reading and spared him a look. Turned out he was already staring at me. "You think it's bad?" he inquired. There was a blend of emotions in his eyes, so tightly woven that I couldn't separate and make sense of them. 

I shook my head. "No, it's not that... It's... It's very deep." I paused. "How do you know so much?" I was squinting at him now. 

He shrugged a bit. "You could assume that all of that's just speculation. Educated guesses. Or just assumptions from someone who thinks too much." Irony left a strong flavor in that last part of his sentence. 

"It sounds like more than that to me," I ventured. To be honest, I wasn't sure exactly where I was heading with my questioning, only that there was something right out of my reach that I wanted to grab. "How you described the Lifestream as a group of consciousnesses...I've heard that before." I stopped momentarily, deciding how to word my thoughts. "An Ancient said the same thing, along time ago." 

I ended up giving him the wrong impression. He shot me a strange look. "Ancient? You think I'm a Cetra?" 

"Oh, no, no, that's not what I mean! I just... You, you're so... You know so..." While I was struggling to explain myself, he was grinning at me. "What? I'm not making sense, am I?" 

"It's not that. I was just teasing you." 

My face went blank. "Oh." Then I smiled, feeling a bit foolish. I laid the magazine to rest in my lap, still folded open to the eleventh page. I turned to Sef again. "Well, actually, I always felt there was something you weren't telling me..." 

See, I was doing the teasing now. I was smiling at him and everything. The next thing he said though, despite his own little grin, was more serious than I could've anticipated. "There's a lot I haven't told you yet." 

I flashbacked to that day out in the rain, Sunday. God, he was being as cryptic now as he had been then. That wasn't starting to scare me the way it should have; I didn't feel any subconscious warnings calling to me. Instead I felt frustrated. I wanted to know all of his answers then. Guessing games grew irritating fast. 

I faced him, no longer beaming, my mouth like a nail. "I want you to tell me someday. I don't feel right, sitting here and talking to you when I know so little about you. You know what I mean?" I'm trying to find you, I wanted to scream. Truth was, I already found him a while ago, whenever my suspicions would breathe down my neck. I had found him then. Yet this time I meant it in a different sense: I wanted to find the person sitting beside me. I didn't care who he was or what he did, even if I thought I was wrong in suspecting him then. I just wanted to know Sef the person, because I couldn't stop thinking about him. 

He reached out for me then, and touched my bare shoulder. His smile then was melancholic. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then tried again with, "You really want to know, don't you?" And his eyes were locked with mine. 

I stared right back at him. I felt so strong, so sure of myself at that moment, maybe more than I ever had before. I nodded. 

"I'll tell you someday," he said, with maddening vagueness. 

"But I want to know now," I protested. "I feel... I don't even know why I'm sitting here with you, but...I feel that I should. I feel that I can talk to you. And I want you to talk to me." 

He leaned in toward me, closer. "And I told you, I will." His voice grew softer, almost whispery. "Give me some time." 

A little voice at the back of my mind said, _what he'll say, you already know,_ but I mentally gave it a swift kick. I didn't care if I already knew or not; I wanted to hear it from him---if that was really it, if he really was... 

"I don't have the patience of a saint," I warned him teasingly, "so don't keep me waiting." 

"I don't like talking much about the past..." 

"It's okay. You can trust me." 

"I can?" 

"Uh-huh." 

Somehow, our faces managed to get really close. But then again, I probably hadn't noticed that because I was paying too much attention to his mouth, watching his lips move as he spoke. I raised my eyes to meet his, and in those glowing depths I saw a world of pain, stretched out against a backdrop of teal green. Had I not been through that ordeal with Cloud in the Lifestream so long ago, I wouldn't have been prepared for what I saw in Sef. And it wasn't just pain that lurked in his eyes---there was sorrow too. And regret. And shame. The shadows of what he had yet to expose to me were laid out for me to peruse, like one of the newspapers that held his writings. I felt so much compassion for him then that I found it hard to breathe. 

_That_ was what was calling to me from within him? Damn, did I have my work cut out for me. 

I didn't remember which one of us initiated it, but pretty soon my lips were pressed against his, gently. Reflexively I closed my eyes. I kissed him again, once, twice, over and over. My only reminder of where I was at was the breeze that passed us by. 

He was warm and tasted sweet and I felt myself melding into him, lost in the moment and not at all wanting to open my eyes and remind myself that I couldn't do this all day. At the same time, I didn't quite feel relaxed: there was something inside me that seemed to be running, heading someplace, wanting something else. 

He caught me off guard when he opened his mouth a little wider, and consequently mine as well. When I felt his tongue brush against mine, I mechanically reached up and put my right hand on his shoulder. I picked up a little twinge of hesitancy from him; whether it was from what he did or what I did I probably would never know. But I sparred with him, tongue against tongue. I was satisfied not only because there was more physical contact between us now, but also because it was substituting well for the intellectual intercourse I wasn't receiving. 

I felt his arm snake around my waist and we momentarily separated. He pulled me over and onto his lap. The magazine that had been resting open on mine had tumbled to the ground. He swore. 

I was straddling his legs now, begging for things to resume. "The hell with it," I whispered to him, inching closer again. The only thing on my mind when I looked at him then was "more." And that was just what he gave me. 

I noticed that his hands remained where he had placed them last, on my lower back. They never once moved either up or down. Being gentlemanly, weren't you? Oh, but I wouldn't have minded if you'd have forgotten your nice manners. Still I wasn't as shameless as, say, Gigi was. I knew this couldn't go any further, and I didn't want it to, not yet. I didn't like to rush things. 

Eventually we broke again, but it seemed to be a mutual thing and I needed air. I'd been drowning in him for God only knew how long. I kissed his face a few times, ran my fingertips along his jaw line. That entire moment seemed delicate, fragile, and I wanted to preserve every bit of it. My eyes were still half closed. I felt motivated then to push the issue of what he wasn't telling me yet, so I whispered, "Promise me you'll tell me one day. Promise me you'll tell me everything." The moment I spoke those words, I felt as though I'd given in to something that went far beyond the two of us, sitting here on this old bench. 

Sef laughed a bit. "A promise?" 

"Yes. Promise me. I'll feel safer that way." I grinned. Wow, this was bringing back memories. I was ready to have a good laugh at myself then. Yet this time it didn't seem so futile or childish. 

"I'll give you my word then," grunted Sef. "Is that good enough?" 

I nodded against him. "Yes." 

He chuckled deeply. I could feel the sound vibrating in his throat. "I would've told you anyway." 

"I know, but I just want to feel sure." I leaned further into him then, on his shoulder near his neck. I looked out over the meadow behind us, watching the wind make waves in the grass, where the sun made their green into gold. 

I couldn't describe how relaxed I was. I didn't care about anything at that moment. My suspicions were powerless over me. The only thing I was certain of was that I really, really cared about the person I was with now. Whoever he was, whoever he had been, I liked sitting here with him like this. I liked this person. And maybe that was all I needed to know. 

I started stroking his hair then. I noticed he had it tied back again. "Do you mind," I asked him, "if I undo your hair?" 

He stirred a bit beneath me. His reply was a bit cagey. "If you want to." 

He leaned forward and I pulled out his looped tail of hair. I unwrapped the band around it and soon it was free to dance in the wind, streaming out towards the meadow. When the sun hit it, it turned nearly blond. That gold color reminded me of a scene long ago, when I saw a very similar wave of hair flickering before a landscape of fire. 

I wasn't going to be able to put off my feelings any longer, I realized. My denial had a timer on it, and soon there would be no more seconds to count down. 

Then I realized how hungry I was, and that in turn made me remember something else. I drew back away from Sef suddenly. "Oh, damn, I almost forgot!" 

He looked puzzled, of course. "What?" 

"I almost forgot, I wanted to be home before Cloud got up!" I made to disentangle myself from Sef, which was about the time I discovered how reluctant I was to do such a thing. Those last few moments we had were about as perfect as my life would allow. Did I really want to leave them so soon? 

I toyed with the thought of inviting Sef back to my home, but my gut spoke out strongly against that. Instead, I unwrapped my legs from around him and got to my feet. The fallen magazine caught my eye then; I bent to retrieve it and handed it back to its owner. Sef took it absently. 

"I'm sorry," I told him. "I don't want to leave you so suddenly..." 

"No, it's all right. I understand." 

I sighed, relieved, when something else I should've remembered came to mind. "Oh, something else... I probably should've told you this earlier, but my birthday's coming up. Next Friday, May third---" 

Sef looked thoughtful. "I see. I should probably warn you I'm not good at gift giving, but I'm pretty good at remembering." He smiled a little there. 

"It's all right," I laughed. "I just want you to come, so I can show you off. It's gonna be a sort of reunion; all my old friends'll be there. Nothing too big though; just a little something at my place. You remember where I live, don't you?" 

He nodded, looking preoccupied. 

I cast my eyes downward. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. What you get me doesn't matter; I just want you to be there." I looked up at him again. His eyes were distant. I had quite a few mixed feelings about asking him to come myself, but if I wanted this relationship to go anywhere, I had to bring Sef out of the shadows. 

"No, don't worry about it," he assured me. 

"Then you'll come?" 

He seemed to hesitate. "You'll see me there. I'm not sure if I can stay, but I'll show." 

I smiled, relieved again. "Thank you." And I gave him a little hug. 

We parted with a lot of longing, and I suddenly discovered afterward that I had the energy to jog my way back home. I thought my heart was back there on Sef's sleeve, and in truth part of it was. But that was the way love worked when it first bloomed: you never wanted to be apart from that person, not even when you had to leave them. 

I felt like I was running on air. I was in love and I wasn't there on the sidelines pining for it to happen. And my birthday was right around the corner. Life wasn't one big bloated adventure story straight out of a movie theater. It was back to its nice, normal little size. 

When I got home, the first thing I did was tiptoe upstairs to see if Cloud was awake. He was---his door was open. 

I took a peek inside and found a vacant, unmade bed. The windows in the room were open and the light from outside touched on something underneath the bed. In the shadow there I caught a glitzy shine. Wrapping paper? 

Oh, I shouldn't have done it, but I couldn't hold myself back. I was too curious. No, I was going to open anything! I just wanted to see...what kind of wrapping paper he used! Yes. And what size the box was. 

I crept over to his bed, squatted, lifted that corner of his comforter that was blocking half my view, and stole a look. Well, it was pretty wrapping paper: purple, with little festive balloons and party hats on it. A generic design---Cloud was always shy of gift giving, just the opposite of me---but the sparkle it had was a personal touch, something that he thought I'd like. I could tell by looking at it. Yikes, I knew him so well I could actually analyze his choice of gift wrap. 

I didn't get to see much more though, because I heard a commotion in the kitchen, followed by a "Tif, you home?" 

I was down the stairs like a thunderbolt, putting on a well-practiced innocent look. A part of me was really tickled at being kind of sneaky about things, but only because the situation was so lighthearted. I withheld a smile as he came stalking into the living room. "I thought I heard you come in." He held up a cup of something hot demonstratively. "Behold: I have created coffee." And he smirked playfully at his own jest. 

I clapped for him. "And I'm very proud of you." 

But then he came over to me and handed me the cup. His mirth faded away. "I'm sorry," he said after a time. 

Huh? Sorry? "For what?" 

He had looked away for a bit then, but now his eyes were back on me. "For last night. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. I was just...in a bad mood. I was feeling frustrated." 

I just stood there, holding the coffee. Well, he'd jumped the gun. I was kind of glad though, since whenever I have to do the apologizing to Cloud, it always came with a nagging inner feeling that he wouldn't really accept it. For what reason I felt that way, I wasn't sure. Having him do the icebreaking was another weight off my shoulders. I smiled feebly. "It's okay." Because you were always that way, Cloud. You were always moody, ever since we met again in Sector Seven in Midgar. 

Back when Sephiroth had been messing with your mind, a whole eternity ago. 

Cloud coaxed me to the kitchen then before I could elaborate on my train of thought. I pushed everything aside and asked him, "Well, did you try anything else while I was out?" 

"Ahh...actually, I was hoping you'd give me a hand this time." 

"Okay." 

Heedless of my little life, the timer kept on ticking away. On my twenty-second birthday, something would end...and a whole new thing would begin. 


	10. 10

10

Remember, remember, the third of May... 

Figured that everything would come to a hectic crescendo right on my birthday. Figured, because not only would I have all my friends in one place, but also because this was the first time that Sef would actually be visiting me. I've known him for over a month now and this would be the first time he'd see the interior of the house he dropped me off at, on that misty night many weeks ago. 

I'd extended an invitation to Sef a week before the party; since then I haven't ran into him. I could only assume that he was still coming. It occurred to me shortly after our last meeting that having him come over would force him to get acquainted with Cloud and Barret and everyone else. I couldn't say that I was unhappy or uncomfortable about that, to be honest. So far, my relationship with Sef had been primarily based on one chance encounter after another. It was obvious that if things continued that way, the most I'd ever get out of knowing him was a friendship-with-benefits type of thing, when what I wanted most of all was intellectual intercourse. There was still a lot I wanted to know that I felt he wasn't telling me, plus that nearly one-month-old feeling about his hurting and the healing I could do. Yes, it was still lingering inside me, like a cobweb in a corner of my mind. 

I wanted to see more of him. But as a part of Sef was obviously running _to_ me, seeking me out, the other kept running off before any of the shadows could be torn away. Shyness in romance looked like a nice explanation, but there were times---like last Monday---when that wasn't exactly a problem. 

So then, what was it? 

During the days that followed between last Monday and my birthday, Cloud and I had a lot to do. Guests were coming over from all sorts of places and we had to put them up until the big day arrived. Any Sef-related anxiety was pushed out of my head. 

Yuffie was the first to arrive at my doorstep four days prior to my birthday, fresh out of Wutai. I was in the kitchen when Cloud got the door. She was a loud knocker. I heard her voice as soon as she stepped inside the house. 

"Hey, be _careful_, would you? It's fragile!" 

I ran in to greet her, but she stopped me right before I could enter the living room. I could make out Cloud's footsteps as he ascended the stairs. 

Yuffie got all riled up. "Hold on a minute, Tifa! He's not upstairs yet!" Then she turned away from me and shouted to Cloud, "_Move_ it! She's gonna see it!" 

"Yuffie..." Just by looking at her, I could tell she was nearly all grown up now, almost eighteen. She must've been out in the sun a lot---she looked really dark. Her hair had been cut much shorter and there were platinum blonde streaks running through it. Though it was strange to see what she did to it for the first time, it really did suit her. I wondered what her father thought of those streaks then, or if she'd just sprung them on him as a surprise. 

The latter was probably the case. 

Before I could say anything more, Yuffie charged at me and caught me up in a backbreaking hug. Yep, she was still as tough as before, maybe even a bit stronger. I got a hunch that she was starting to take her role as a shinobi princess more seriously than before. But if I ever doubted she was the same old Yuffie, the wind she knocked out of my lungs would've definitely dispelled it. 

Reeve arrived later that day, when I was on the sofa reading again. I heard the doorbell ring twice; when I opened the door and found him there, I went out to give him a hug. That was when he pulled away, swinging something big behind his back. "No, no, no, you can't see this. I couldn't wrap it. Just tell me where I can put it until the big day." 

I nodded, a little confused (and more than a bit curious), then called for Cloud and let him take care of it. That particular present was on my mind for the rest of the day, waiting with Yuffie's in Cloud's room. The whole time Reeve was with us, he visited it frequently. 

Red XIII came two days later with a package, making him the last person who would stay with Cloud and I. Cid and Shera arrived the day after Red, but since there was no more room available at my place, I had to send them over to Barret's. 

Cid had some interesting news for me. "Vincent stopped by my place a coupla weeks ago. I was wonderin' what happened to that guy. I asked what he was up to and he put me off. I told him about the party anyway. You don't mind, do ya?" 

Mind? "Do I _mind_? Cid, I can't thank you enough! I'd be happy to have him over! I wanted to send him an invitation back in February, but I didn't know where to find him." Later on I ended up wondering if he'd bothered to buy me anything, but I decided afterward that it didn't really matter. He'd always been impersonal. Too, his presence alone was enough of a gift for me, since I hadn't been counting on it. 

Vincent wasn't the only last-minute guest I would get, however---as you might have guessed, Gigi had a few tricks up her sleeve. Apparently she blabbed about my birthday party to a few friends of hers, who in turn must have spread the word. At least that was how I rationalized it before she showed up that day ("fashionably late," she called it), which was my only chance to interrogate her on it. Why do I say that now? Because my little house ended up with a lot more partiers than I'd intended. 

But I shouldn't go too far ahead. On May third I got up bright and early and got dressed. At seven-thirty, Cloud and Yuffie came into my room with breakfast: eggs and pancakes and toast and orange juice all laid out nicely on a tray. I was so shocked I almost laughed. 

"Wait a minute!" I trained my eyes on Yuffie. "How much of this did Cloud make?" And was the kitchen all right? 

Yuffie's gray eyes slid toward Cloud's direction and narrowed mischievously. "Let's put it this way: if it wasn't for me, your kitchen would be a mess. And in flames." 

Cloud turned on her. "Hey, hey! I know how to put out kitchen fires by now!" 

Typically, Yuffie was undaunted. "...But, I'll give you props for pouring the orange juice yourself." 

They left me with the tray and exited my room still bickering. Noise downstairs told me that Cloud must've owed Reeve too for this little surprise, and maybe even Red, if being four-legged didn't make him less of a hand in the kitchen. I smiled. It was nice to hear so much racket---made the place feel really homey. 

Needless to say, I ate pretty fast. Then I went downstairs...and got in everyone's way. After excitement came nervousness. I wanted to make sure everything was set, and with the party several hours away I had nothing else to do with myself. 

"How about the cake? Don't forget to pick it up, okay?" 

"Tifa, I already told you about the cake. Remember yesterday?" 

"Oh, yeah, that's right... Sorry. I can't help it; I'm nervous." 

Cloud fixed me with that serious, steadying look of his. "Look, there's no need to be nervous! Calm down. I've got it under control. Don't worry." 

Ha, easier said than done. Even if it _was_ my birthday, I hated being left out of organizing things. I was used to being in the thick of stuff like that. I'd always been the caretaker, the person who worked out all the arrangements. It was why I felt so at-home running Seventh Heaven years ago. Managing gatherings and get-togethers was my specialty---along with pushing out the drunks. 

After several minutes of listening to Cloud and Reeve telling me to relax, Yuffie assuring me that she'd handle "the guys," and Red assuring me that he'd handle everybody, I finally sat down. Reluctantly. 

And I started thinking again, the way I'd always been doing lately. I thought about Sef of course, particularly how everyone would treat him when he made his entrance. I tried to assume things would go just fine---and why wouldn't they, superficially speaking, since my friends were the most accepting group of people I'd ever known---but I felt that those assumptions were only skin-deep. I could practically taste the inkling that things would go very awry. 

But why? 

In trying to answer that, I hit the wall again---the one I didn't want to face. But that wall had a very clear voice, and it spoke to me even when I tried to silence it. What Sef was hiding was something I inwardly expected, something that was permanently connected to my friends and I. I didn't want to give it any words or a decent amount of thought because it was scary and unreal, but what if it was true? 

Now that was enough to calm me down then. All the anticipation of the party melted away. Well, I reasoned, if Sef showed up and everyone got to meet him, then things would be fine and I'd finally see that this whole thing was just some weird byproduct of stress. 

...Or Sef could show up and, say, Cloud could see him, and everything could go haywire. 

Cloud. Cloud was the key in this. So was everyone else. They'd know if Sef were really... If he really was... 

"Hey, Tif, get in here! It's Vincent! Vincent's here!" 

Cloud's voice, drifting in from the kitchen. I was off the sofa in a flash, leaving behind another muddled knot of thoughts. I dashed into the kitchen and there at the back door, standing close but not quite coming in, was that someone I hadn't seen in a long, long time. "Oh my God, I thought I'd never see you again...!" I almost ran over to give Vincent Valentine a much-deserved hug, but then I remembered---he wasn't quite like the rest of us, even if I considered him to be. He always stood apart. Vincent seemed truly comfortable when he was on the outside looking in---just the opposite of me. 

His greeting was a quiet little nod, then, "Hello, Tifa. And happy birthday." Oh, he was still the same, his hair still long and dark as twilight, his eyes still that eerie shade of red that made him look less human inside. But there was an air of peace coming off him now, something that he hadn't carried with him when we had traveled together years ago. He had been at war with himself then, and sometimes one of us had come in during the battles: when he'd be half-man and half-beast, undergoing a transformation that scared the hell out of us. I'd wondered what made him that way, what Hojo had done to him to hurt him so badly, but whatever it was, it seemed to have left him now. 

"Thank you," I answered him quietly. I actually felt a little shy around him, but I guess it was natural. It _had_ been too long. 

Cloud patted me briefly on the shoulder. "All right, I told Cid I'd meet him in Downtown to pick up a few things. Make sure you let everyone else know Vincent's here." He left then. 

Vincent leered. "That won't be necessary, Tifa. I can't stay for too long." 

My eyes grew wide. "Oh, Vincent, why not? The party's only in a few hours..." 

He shook his head. "I haven't made any preparations." Then he paused there. When he resumed speaking, it was with a very low tone of voice. "The real reason for my coming was a dream I had. I dreamt of you, a little while ago." 

A very familiar sensation seized me then, the same one that used to appear whenever I met up with Sef. But why was that hitting me now? "Was it a good dream or a bad one?" I asked, mentally anticipating "bad" to be the answer. 

Vincent didn't respond right away; he looked like he was absorbed in trying to recall it. He made a face. "I can't quite say. But it was strange. It had me a little worried, so I came out to see how you were doing." He looked into my eyes. "I'm glad you're well." 

That wasn't a very satisfactory response. I frowned at him. "If it had you worried, I take it that it was a bad dream." 

"Well, no, it wasn't bad per se. I was only worried it might be. But seeing you here now, well taken care of, I assume there was no need for me to---" 

"Don't finish that. You don't know how happy I am to see you." I threw caution into the wind then and leaned forward to embrace him. He was a little surprised by my move, but eventually hugged me back. When I pulled away, I was looking him directly in the eyes, pleading with him not to go so soon. "C'mon, Vincent. Just stay a little bit. How about just an hour? You don't have to stay for the party. I just want to know how you're doing, where you've been..." 

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but I could've sworn I saw the man smile at me. "I'm doing quite well for myself, and I'm staying in Tsen, west of Rocket Town. There's not much else to add, Tifa. The rest of it is rather personal." 

If Vincent had really smiled, by this time it had faded away. I wasn't about to push him, so I dropped the subject. "It's all right. I won't force you. Just...come by here more often, okay?" I made a mental note of the city he spoke of; maybe Cloud and I could stop by his place once we get the time. "Maybe Cloud and I could come see you someday, if that's all right with you." 

"If you want to," came the noncommittal reply. He began to back away from the door then. I didn't stop him, but I stood there to watch him as he went. "Tifa, take care of yourself. Give the others my regards." 

I nodded mechanically, still staring as the scenery of Uptown Quintz slowly swallowed up Vincent's shadowy figure. I had to turn away soon, though, because a terrible ache welled up in the pit of my stomach, and I was afraid it might end up splattering all over the back doorstep. 

* * *

Cue early evening, less than an hour before the party. The cake was sitting in the fridge and all the drinks---alcoholic and non---were ready to be brought out and passed around. My house had the atmosphere of the calm before the storm, the deep breath before the plunge. Vincent's visitation had revived all of my worries about Sef. I was still in the kitchen, standing in the open back door, nursing half a bottle of beer in the hopes that liquor would loosen me up. It was nice outside, a typical ending day in May, pleasantly warm but starting to cool slightly. Perfect weather for a party. The sun was starting to sink, drawing out all the shadows of homes and trees. The sky was afire with the descent. 

I was twenty-two today. I should be celebrating, even if it wasn't much of an age to reach---it wasn't a landmark like eighteen, for example, the almighty official drinking age. I should be happy that everyone was under the same roof again, only this time without any monstrous missions to carry out or the prospect of death hanging over our heads. It was like a family reunion, and here I was avoiding everyone's company. 

I got hit with the feeling that Sef would probably come through the back door when he did arrive. Maybe that was why I was standing there, watching the sun set. 

Cloud, Yuffie, Reeve, and Red were in the living room. I could hear their voices, but I felt detached from them strangely. Their mirth couldn't touch me. 

"Tifa?" 

I jumped, then looked over my shoulder. Reeve. 

"Oh, sorry, I didn't meant to scare you---" 

I shrugged it off. "No, it's all right." 

I turned away again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him take a seat at the kitchen table. His posture screamed unease. He took a breath and immediately I knew what he was planning to say. "Everyone's wondering why you won't come inside," he began. "Is something wrong? You look really..." There he trailed off, like he was trying to find a word that wouldn't offend. I smirked a bit. I could've told him that I wasn't in a sensitive mood right now, but I honestly didn't want to talk to anyone. Reeve finally decided on, "You look really disturbed. And I hate seeing you that way, Tifa." 

I looked him full in the face. For some reason, his choice of wording really struck out at me. 

He caught my expression and knit his brows disapprovingly. "Oh, come on now. The first time I met you face to face you were smiling. I always thought you were the one who was happiest about meeting me in the flesh. The others... Well, Cloud can be so deadpan sometimes, and I think Barret was born grumpy..." 

I chuckled at that. "You don't know him as well as I do. He looks that way, but he's really very sensitive. I think he's embarrassed about that though, so he goes out of his way to cover it up." 

Reeve raised his eyebrows, his brown eyes hooded. "Quite a disguise." I smiled then, and he caught me instantly. "Hey---hey! Now _that's_ what I want to see!" He rose from the chair and approached me. "Hold that pose." His hands curled into the shape of a camera lens, pointed at my face. 

I rolled my eyes. "You're such a goof," I teased him. 

His face became very serious. "Is it working?" 

I nodded, laughing. "Yes, I think it is." 

"Very well then. Are you ready to come inside, or do I have to shift into overdrive?" 

I shook my head. I didn't know how this man managed it, but he was ridiculously cheerful and that was frighteningly contagious. I was reminded then of why I liked him so much since we'd met in Kalm. "No, you don't have to go that far." 

He reached out and grabbed my left hand. "Then let's go!" 

At that point I was more than willing to follow him. I silently thanked God that he was the one who came in for me (or was sent in, depending on the situation in the living room). Cloud, being somewhat similar to me, might've ended up getting me frustrated; Red was too logical and that didn't always work. Yuffie... Well, honestly, she might have made a good substitute for Reeve. Only mouthier. 

Once I was in the living room, Yuffie got up from her perch on the arm of the sofa. "Well THERE you are! Gawd, I was so scared you'd be a wet blanket---!" 

Reeve reprimanded her. "Hey! Watch it, kid! That's the birthday girl you're talking to. She's allowed to be a wet blanket." 

"Put a sock in it, old man! I'm not a kid!" 

"I see you raided the fridge already," Cloud said to me, cutting through Reeve and Yuffie's stream of retorts. 

My eyes darted down to the bottle in my right hand. "Oh, this was the only one I had. I needed something to calm me down." I went to sit down; Cloud scooted over to make room for me. He ended up on my left, leaving Red, who was hunkered down at the opposite end of the sofa, to my right. I took notice of him right away. "You know, I meant to say this when you first got here, but it kept flying out of my head. You were the only one who sent letters on a regular basis. I was always so happy to hear from you." 

Red's lone amber eye slid over in my direction. "I thought you'd be. I really wanted to keep up with everyone. I'm isolated where I'm at. You and Cloud have each other..." 

Yuffie jumped in on things then. "Hey, what about me? I'm all the way over in Wutai! I live on an island out in the middle of the ocean! I _am_ isolation!" 

"Well, why don't you write?" I rounded on her. "Why doesn't anyone write? I haven't heard much from Cid and Shera either, and Reeve, you dropped off recently..." 

"I ran out of postcards," he offered sheepishly, from his position on an armchair. 

"I hate writing," Yuffie added. 

"I live in the same house," Cloud came in with the tiniest of smiles. 

Reeve burst out laughing. I gave Cloud a playful shove with my free hand. 

The whole house came to life then, with a lot of talking and laughing and smiling. I managed to finish off my beer and was feeling very much at ease. Lo and behold, things were starting to look up! And in a short while, the guests would arrive and I'd have presents to open and a cake to polish off (with help, of course). 

When the time came, Barret and Marlene were the first guests to show up, along with Cid and Shera and a bunch of wrapped packages. "I drew you something!" Marlene told me happily. 

The next people who should have arrived were Gigi and her boyfriend, Antoine and his girlfriend Rachel (the aspiring actress), and Sef. Wasn't much, but it was all I wanted for a birthday party: just me, my closest friends, and a man I desired to know better than anyone else on the Planet. But as with so many other things in my life, it didn't turn out that way. I already told you about the unexpected guests and the possibility of Gigi as the culprit; this was about the time when all that came into play. 

A group of five people---three guys and two girls---rung our doorbell off and entered my house, with a few little gift bags and what looked like birthday cards in their hands. "Hi. Uh, this is Tifa's house right? There's supposed to be a party here," said a blond-haired guy in the middle of the bunch. I could only imagine what was in those bags, since I didn't know those people. And that was only the beginning. 

About thirty or so perfect strangers later (not counting Antoine and Rachel, who had come in the midst of the stream of unfamiliar people), Gigi and Roger finally appeared on my doorstep, with the expected presents and a huge smile on the face of the former. 

She hurried on in and hugged me tightly, then pulled back, still beaming. "Well, well, well! Twenty-two at last! You look so good for your age, Tif. Oh, you remember Roger, right? You guys met a while ago." 

Before I could begin prodding her with questions about the crowd in my house, she backed away and Roger stepped up, looking as dark and dubious as he always did. We shook hands; his "happy birthday" for me was little more than a "hnnn." At Gigi's nudging he finally managed to force out the words, as though he'd forgotten why he'd been invited here in the first place. Now the first time I'd met him I knew he wasn't the pleasant type, but right now he was openly wearing his malcontent all over his face. His next heartwarming line was, "You got drinks here, right? As in booze?" I nodded, not bothering to conceal the displeasure in my own eyes, and he took off fast, leaving Gigi with the gift bag he'd been carrying. 

She fixed his disappearing form with a look that could've bored holes through plate glass. "Ass. Honestly, I have no CLUE what's wrong with that man recently. Probably shoved his nose hair trimmer too far into his head." There was something unsettling in her eyes, and I knew she was obviously brushing off a serious problem with her usual humor. Yet she came around very quickly. "So... Notice anything in regards to the guest tally?" She narrowed her eyes at me and waggled her brows. 

That brought me back to my original intentions. "Gigi! God, I _knew_ you had something to do with this! This has you written all over it!" 

Her expression turned to shock. "Whoa, whoa! I was just doing you a favor! Think of all the extra gifts!" 

I closed my eyes, folding my arms over my chest. This wasn't going to be easy. "I told you, all I wanted was something small. Just me and my friends; that was it. I don't even know half these people!" Not to mention, the unexpected arrivals were putting off Cid, Barret, and Cloud in particular. 

Gigi reached out and grabbed my shoulders reassuringly. "Tifa! C'mon. Are you a stranger to the phrase 'the more, the merrier'? It's the universal law of partying. Oh, and did some of them show up with beverages? I told them to bring drinks just in case. And where do you want me to put these?" She hoisted up the gifts loaded in her skinny arms. 

I sighed, defeated again. There wasn't anything I could do about all this now, and trying to chew Gigi's ass off about it wasn't going to make a dent in the long run. Might as well just take it all in stride the way I always did. I pointed ahead. "The dining room." 

"Okay." She breezed by me, then paused and added over her shoulder, "Cheer up, Tif! It'll be all right! Trust me! At least it won't be some ordinary little birthday you'll forget thirty years down the road!" 

For once (and as you could probably imagine), she was quite right. 

A/N: First off, major apologies for the delay. I had a lot of things to do, plus issues with this chapter - I wanted to have the climax occur in just one chapter (this one), but then I realized that I had too many scenes planned for Tifa's party and I couldn't bear to part with them, so think of it as a two-part climax :) Updates will come faster from now on. 

The rating change - because I realized that the swearing in previous chapters already bumps this up to an R. That rating will also fit for a few scenes that'll come up later on - nothing too graphic though, since it doesn't fit the tone of this story, but... I'm sure you know what I mean ;) 

The format change - triple-spacing between paragraphs, I've found, is actually easier on the eyes. All the previous chapters have been redone like this (as have a lot of my older stories). 

One thing that hasn't changed - thank you for reading. Your support means a lot to me. 

Volk Zyta, if you manage to catch this chapter, are you still working on _Last Resort_? 


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